Anyone with recent British Air experience when travelling with a rifle/ammo? I'm looking at flying British Air from the States to JNB. The price is just too appealing. I realize that they assess a fee for rifle and ammo handling but I'm not sure I understand how it works. Reading their website it looks like the rifle and ammo are each charged the additional fee each way, in addition to the excess bag fee for the rifle case. Am I understanding this correctly. I have no problem paying a reasonable fee but if they all add up to what DL and SAA are charging I may as well just fly with one of them and avoid the added hassle.

Have travelled several times with a rifle on BA from Los Angeles to London then on to Africa. They do charge for the firearms and ammo but they also track the bags extremely well so the chance of lost luggage is extremely low.

I would have no hesitation to use BA again.

I've also flown Emirates and would highly recommend them as well.

PM me if you have any questions.

Have a good trip.

Jason

BC3,

BA is my first choice and my recommendation. You'll get there with your guns. The fee for the special handling is well worth it.

Mark

If you look closely, its says on flights to RSA, you are not charged for both the firearm case and ammo case, just one charge.

I believe that you have a 2 bags included in the price for Eco and Eco+. If your gun case is a third piece, then you have an excess baggage charge, plus the fee that they charge for the Heathrow transfer. If its 2 bag including the gun case, then just the Heathrow fee.

It sounds like people that have flown BA have been pleased with the service. I will need to call them and see what the actual extra fees add up to to see how the totals compare. Reading their website I'm seeing only one bag allotment for eco (all other journeys column) so the rifle will be a second bag at excess rate (at $90 "per flight" in addition to the special handling fee "each way"). Thanks for all of the responses.

It was and is well worth the dollars to me. They are a bit slow to check it in and like always traveling with firearms you need to have your paperwork in order and advise BA as per their notification policy. But the rifle case will arrive and BA is very polite about you and your cargo too. There is just one charge per flight.

BA's class of travel called World Traveller Plus had lots of legroom and was priced right.
We snuck in a quick trip to Winsor Castle between connections at Heathrow.
No problem with the guns & ammo at all.

Just returned from Joberg in May. Think I paid $75 in rifle fees. You could tell they weren't use to dealing with firearms, but the $1000 savings was worth the inconvenience.