Flying with instruments - advice please

[charic]

I've got a gig over in Portugal in December (playing keys) and wondered if anyone had any advice. Unless mistaken I believe my keyboard is too big to bring onboard even with buying an extra seat.

[BigRedX]

What keyboard(s) are you playing? 

Unless it's something either very old or very esoteric I'd look at hiring the same model out there and taking all your patches on a laptop or other suitable device and loading them in to the hired keyboard.

[ambient]

I think it all depends on who you’re flying with. I can say one thing based on my experience, someone something else based on theirs. It’s best to look at the flights, then contact someone at a fairly high level at the airline. 

[zranyard]

As said above it depends on the airline, check their measurements for cabin baggage. Sometimes it can be vague regarding instruments. I always check my bass in the hold, i just don't take the one closest to my heart! The keys player I usually tour with just hires normally, and if he has too, checks his in with a flight case. People working for the same airline can tell you different things in my experience, i just check in and cross all fingers!

[charic]

6 hours ago, BigRedX said:

What keyboard(s) are you playing? 

Unless it's something either very old or very esoteric I'd look at hiring the same model out there and taking all your patches on a laptop or other suitable device and loading them in to the hired keyboard.

It's a Korg Kronos, but unfortunately (I guess?!) I run a fair few custom patches that are "one time downloads" and tethered to individual keyboards.  It's an annoying quirk with how the Korg system works.