Due to a screw up in my tickets [I'm trying to get fixed] I may have to take possesion of my guns in Frankfurt on my 11 hour lay over on my way to Namibia.
I know [I should have used Gracy] ,I should have done a lot of things different,but bottom line is I might end up taking possesion of my guns.
Has anyone had this happen ,if so could you give me a heads up on how to handle things.I'm concerned that the customs at Frank will just take them and that is the last I will see of them .

THANKS

Frankfurt is NO PROBLEM with guns. Just have your US Customs registration form when they ask you "wher are yur papers" and you'll be fine. jorge

If you don't leave the international area of the airport you don't have to deal with customs. Your guncase will show up with the over-sized luggage so don't panic when it isn't on the belt. When you re-check your luggage, your ticket will be already be flagged that you are travelling with firearmsso nobody will be suprised. Keep the slip that you signed declaring that your ammo doesn't exceed 5 Kilos, and that the firearms are unloaded handy and chances are that you won't have to fill them out again. Check your luggage at the first opportunity so you don't have to watch it every second. I have found myself wandering around Frankfurt airport with a guncase on two occasions. It's no big deal, though I would rather avoid it altogether.
On one occasion my wife and I were able to store my guns for a couple days at the airport. The next time I had a long layover we couldn't find a storage facility that would take them, and were directed from place to place. Somehow in the confusion caused by construction we found ourselves at yet another baggage storage that couldn't help us. The guy manning the counter pointed to some glass doors and told us that Germany was on the other side, and we just walked out and looked for a cab that could handle our luggage and 3 guncases. To this day, I still don't know how in the Hell we did that.

Until someone with fresher info chimes in, I'll relate my experience from 2006.

On the trip TO Namibia in June, I was able to retrieve my guns and keep them with me in the airport with no hassle. I had to re-check them with Air Namibia when their counter opened some 8+ hours later.

On the trip back (2 weeks later), the game had changed and Customs said I couldn't remove my guns from the baggage area without import paperwork. I explained that I was in-transit and showed them my US Customs form and ticket info, but that made no difference. A new policy had gone into effect during the interim, and they were working out the bugs in the procedures. The bottom line is, I had to let Customs store my guns in their office (there were no provisions for secure storage at the time) in exchange for a receipt - then after I made my way to check-in for my connecting flight, I had to return to Customs and have one of their employees escort me & my rifles back to the check-in counter.

I read a while back that the process has gotten smoother - but it probably isn't the cake walk that some of the posters above have described (although it may very well be).

My advice is to try to check baggage through to your final destination and avoid the hassle - whatever it may be.

Best of luck.

I took my rifles through Frankfurt airport in both 2006 and 2007 both times in July. In 2006 I was able to store them, but in 2007 I couldn't find a storage place that would take them. Checking them straight through is the easiest of course, but not always possible.

My experience in July of 2007 was the same as Acer's. My firearms did not get checked all the way through as they were supposed to and they offloaded in Franfurt. I was left there with the firearms not knowing what to do and so I walked down to Customs to inquire. I was then required to deal with Customs, who took over an hour looking through their policy books to try and determine how to handle it. Finally, after repeated suggestions from me they called the Delta desk, and a Delta representative then came down another hour later and explained to them that they should have been checked all the way through by Air Namibia, but were not. They then allowed the Delta rep to escort us and the firearms to the Delta counter, get us checked in and through and onto the plane, but not a minute too soon as we just barely made the flight back to the US. I was never so glad to leave a foreign country like Germany on that day.

I made the mistake last summer of not checking my guns through from Namibia and had to collect them in Frankfurt. I stood around for a few minutes wondering what to do when I saw a gent showing his rifle to an official looking fellow. The official was a customs officer. He escorted my wife and me through the airport direct to the head of the line and stood there while we checked the guns. Very helpful, efficient and no big problem.