quote:

The German/gun storage problem was a concern prior to travel but turned out to be mostly a non-issue, just as Kathi assured me it would be.

First of all, since you've been there, I'll mention that the Frankfurt airport, which is supposedly the largest freight airport in the world, must handle freight a helluva lot better than they handle passengers. It is a confusing, relatively poor informationally designed place and this was by no means my first rodeo. That said, when you get your baggage, including your gun case, you kind of wander around a bit looking lost and ask the first polizei or zoli (customs) that you see where their office is. It is kind of behind and centrally located in the baggage area. Go there and explain that you have some firearms that you are taking on to Namibia, or wherever. You will be promptly and politely attended to.

Bitching aside, the German customs officials I met were friendly, helpful, and courteous. They simply put my guns and ammo (back to the separate box issue in a minute) in what they called bond after I told them what my travel plans were and issued me a two page receipt with descriptions, etc all in German. I wanted them to keep the tuffpak as well as the bag (that is piece of luggage which contained the ammo container) the ammo was packed in, since the HD plastic camera case mentioned above is relatively small and easily stealable if someone was so inclined, but that balloon didn't fly, so I left them my tuffpak and just the ammo box. They told me to come back WITH TWO AIR NAMIBIA WDH LUGGAGE TAGS WHEN I WAS READY TO DEPART. (Aside, I think this is where the rubber might meet the road if a traveler had his ammo and guns in one case, if one did, I'd do everything I could to avoid mentioning that little detail. In this instance, the German customs didn't even ask me to open my tuffpak and just wrote up a description of it on the receipt, so I could have had ammo in there and gotten away with it) Frankly the baggage tag issue worried me the whole time, since I could easily forsee that an airline employee/ticket agent wasn't going to just hand out luggage tags to every passenger with a "story". In my opinion it creates a huge liability/ security problem for them and I can't imagine it happening over here in the states. Further discussions with other travelers have lead me to believe that my worries had at least some basis in fact, since some said they got them easily and others said they wouldn't give them to them until they went and fetched a customs official, which as you can imagine isn't the easiest little detail to accomplish. In my case, and because of my concerns (that is how long it MIGHT take to get our guns/ammo on the plane to WDH), we were the first in line for the continuing flt to Namibia. After standing there a couple of hours waiting for the counters to open, the ticket agent, a very nice lady, after she understood what I wanted (that is two WDH luggage tags) just handed them over, checked our other two bags, and wished me a good trip/hunt. I took the two baggage tags downstairs to the customs office, same location as above, and, after checking my paperwork, they retrieved the guns, tagged the tuffpak and the small camera/ammo box and said they would personally put them on the plane. As mentioned earlier, I mentally kissed a couple of hundred bucks worth of ammo goodbye, but amazingly, both tuffpak and ammo showed up in WDH, no problems. To be polite, I asked the German customs official if I owed them anything and hey said, "No, it's our job, have a nice hunt." So we did.

This is how it played out for me and I would have no real concerns about doing it again, however, like any security/guns situation things can change. Not telling you anything but I'd be sure to check how the wind is blowing much closer to your actual travel dates. Incidentally I talked with several German hunters who were waiting in line with me to get our Namibian gun papers and they were quite definite that "Greens" as they called them, would deliberately misdirect guns in the FRA airport. Said this had happened to them 3 out of 5 times going to Namibia. One reason I like a tuffpak which is not instantly identifiable as a gun case. I would also avoid having stickers on the outside of any case indicating it contained firearms, such as a SCI membership decal, etc. Probably just my paranoia at work but I like to minimize problems when the cost is so low ahead of time.