Air Travel with your Violin and Bow: Getting the Documents You Need

Written by Laurie Niles
Published: June 26, 2014 at 9:38 PM [UTC]

Here is some help, if you are planning a trip:

Getting your violin on the airplane

Your violin cannot go as checked baggage without grave risk of being broken by baggage handlers or harmed by the very cold conditions in cargo. In order to ensure that you can bring your violin on the plane, here are our best suggestions:

• The FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act of 2012, approved by the U.S. Congress in February of that year, in Section 713, "requires an air carrier to permit an air passenger to carry a violin, guitar, or other musical instrument on a passenger aircraft without charge if it can be stowed safely in a suitable baggage compartment in the aircraft or under a passenger seat." Copy this bill, highlight Section 713, and put it in the pocket of your fiddle case. Here it is for you to copy.
• Bring your violin as your only carry-on bag to go in the overhead compartment.

Avoiding having your bow confiscated

• If possible, travel with a bow that contains no ivory, no tortoise shell, no pernambuco. If your bow contains no banned items, you don't need special documents. However, to be safe you can write to the maker or manufacturer and request a "materials declaration" document to keep in your case, in case you are accused of having ivory in your bow and need proof that you don't. (I wrote to Codabow, maker of my carbon fiber bow, and they were very prompt and helpful getting me this document. Coda told me they likely will begin making these available online; I'll let you know as soon as I have a link for that.)
• If your bow does contain any of the banned materials, see the explanation and link below and also read several helpful suggestions that have been made in the comments to this blog:

A lot of work has gone into mitigating the effects of a Feb. 25, 2014 immediate ban by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on traveling with items that contain any African ivory. In May, the ban was amended to allow for traveling with stringed instruments that contain a small amount of ivory, but only under certain conditions. According to Raymond M. Hair, Jr., International President American Federation of Musician of the United States and Canada, in a letter to AFM members: "The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service still requires the following requirements be met before you can safely travel in and out of the U.S. with a musical instrument containing African elephant ivory. It now requires that:

1. The ivory contained in the instrument was legally acquired prior to February 26, 1976;
2. The instrument must not have subsequently been transferred from one person to another person for financial gain or profit since February 25, 2014;
3. The person or group qualifies for a CITES musical instrument certificate;
4. The musical instrument containing African elephant ivory must be accompanied by a valid CITES musical instrument certificate or an equivalent CITES document."

The problem that remains is obtaining that CITES ("Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species") document, which requires applying for said document and producing ownership documents. Even the AFM was having a hard time figuring out how to guide members on this: "Due to lack of guidance from USFWS, there is still confusion over where to go, either online or in person, to apply for and obtain the correct permit. Since musicians have been singled out, we believe there should be a one-stop online center for information specifically regarding musical instruments. These issues should have been addressed along with the amended Order as well. They too must be resolved," Hair said.

Here is the best link that I could find about how to obtain a CITES document for traveling with an instrument that contains Brazilian rosewood, elephant ivory, tortoiseshell, or another protected species: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service International Affairs: Traveling Across International Borders with Your Musical Instrument. Getting such a permit can take up to 60 days, according to the USFWS, which also says that "we are in the process of developing a new application form for the musical instrument passport program." In the meantime, it's pretty confusing.

If you have information or advice to share to help the members of this community who will be traveling by air with their instruments, please add it in the comments section. Good luck and safe travels, everyone!

UPDATE:

From bow maker Matt Wehling:

"Thanks for posting about the current problems with trying to travel internationally with a bow. However, there were a couple inaccuracies in your blog post.

First, it is currently OK to travel with a pernambuco bow. The CITES listing is only for raw wood, but a finished bow is OK from a pernambuco standpoint.

Second, it would be great if a letter from the maker was accepted by importation officials, but there's no guarantee. It's better than nothing, I suppose, but still agents on the ground may or may not accept it. And while almost all bows made in the last 20-25 years by modern makers like me would have a mastodon tip, there's no way an official can easily tell the difference so your at the mercy of their whims.

Third, there's also a species of shell which is subject to import/export restrictions. And so, even though no maker uses this shell, a government agent might decide to confiscate your bow for that.

Fourth, the New York legislature is considering a bill which will make it illegal to sell ivory. There is an exception in the law for musical instruments made before 1975, but that still outlaws a lot of bows from being sold. And the New Jersey Legislature this week also passed legislation for signature by Governor Christie that would ban the import, sale, purchase, and possession with intent to sell of any ivory (elephant, hippopotamus, mammoth, narwhal, walrus or whale) or rhino horn, with no exceptions. I'm not sure, but that sounds like a New Yorker couldn't even legally drive across the bridge to play a gig in Jersey with a legally purchased bow which has a mammoth tip.

And we all need to start organizing, because the next possible banned substance will potentially be ebony, which is in every musical instrument.

Bowmakers are working to try to find a suitable replacement material which will be easily distinguishable from ivory, yet not ugly as sin. But it needs to be good and stable and glue well to wood, which not all plastic materials will do. But we're trying."

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You might also like:

• Time for Three Violinists Denied on U.S. Airways Flight
• European Orchestra Caught in Bureaucratic Snag over Ivory in Bows