I wanted to pass on my experience, so far, with British Airways and getting approval to travel with a firearm.

My son and I are both taking our first trip to Africa. We're hunting in South Africa. We are flying British Airways because he won 2 plane tickets to anywhere in the world.

I am taking my 338 Win Mag and he's taking his 7 Rem mag. If you read BA's rules for traveling with firearms, it states you must call at least 72 hours ahead of departure to alert them you are checking a firearm and then call again 24 -48 hours later to see if you have approval.

Thinking this might not be an easy process I called a week early. I would recommend anyone needing to go through this process do the same.

First of all, I never spoke to anyone at BA that wasn't from India and they all were somewhat difficult to understand. They also had a hard time understanding me. I get it, I'm from Texas. Not a single one of them understood the word "firearm" when I told them why I was calling but they all finally understood "rifle". They asked for manufacturer, model, etc. To get them to understand Winchester was a task. Almost every word had to be spelled out. The guy really was puzzled when I told him "bolt action."

The problem was when we got to caliber. When I told him 338 Win Mag, he said it wasn't on his list of rifle calibers. I asked him to read me the list and there were very few listed. There was 224 and 375 and a few in between but not even close to the full list we hunters might take.

I insisted on talking to a supervisor and I could tell he was going to do everything possible to keep that from happening. Finally he put me on hold. After a few minutes he came back and told me he spoke to his supervisor and everything was okay. From that point on it went smoothly.

I want to make clear, this agent wasn't trying to be difficult, I just think his culture doesn't understand firearms at all or the nomenclature.

It took my son over an hour to go through the process.

Now the good news. I'm approved to travel with my rifle. My son called a day later so he should hear tomorrow.

The reason I recommend calling early is if you get denied, I don't know how long it would take to get it corrected.

The next challenge will be at the airport. Their regs say if you're flying into South Africa, your ammo must be checked separately, not in your checked bag. I'm going to see if they'll let us put our ammo cases in our checked bagS.

I'll let you know.

Never go with British Airways, I also did go with them with firearms once and never again.
They just fucked all up.

Like I said, my son won the tickets.

No choice.

I will only fly BA if Inhave no other choice!

They seem to have an extraordinary amount of trouble!!

NO they will not let you put the ammo in a checked bag. It must be in a separate locked container.

When you arrive at the airport and arrive very early, you will fill out a BA form for the transport of the firearm. Make sure you get a copy of that form. In Joburg, BA uses contractors to check you in for your flight and has ONE BA employee at check in. If they cannot easily find your carriage of the firearm, you will have problems checking in for your return flight, I did. Thankfully, I had a copy of the paperwork, otherwise I would have been screwed. And you know BA charges 100 pounds to carry a firearm, correct.