That is why I used the word «may». There are no guarantees in life, you just have to weigh the pros and cons, find out what’s most important to you, and what risks you are willing to take, and that’s very much a personal thing.
But when it comes to the question of air travel with gig bags/hard cases, many people, both here on TB and elsewhere (present company excepted, of course
), are more than willing to offer both advice and opinions (sometimes very strong) based on very little other than their own personal preferences and largely unsubstantiated suppositions. The truth is, we just don’t have enough to go on to know one way or the other.
In order to be reasonably sure of our ground in this matter, we need at least one of two things (I’ve said this in other threads as well, but it bears repeating):
1) Against: A moderate number of horror stories; i. e. stories of basses being severely damaged in good quality gig bags when traveling as checked luggage. This would indicate that they had both been subjected to significant force during travel and/or handling, and that the gig bag afforded insufficient protection.
2) For: A large number of success stories; i. e. stories of basses traveling in gig bags as checked luggage, and arriving unscathed.
Note that we need far more success stories than horror stories to conclude that basses can safely be checked in gig bags, in order to eliminate the possibility of it just being good luck.
It’s highly unlikely that we’ll get either of these things anytime soon, as most players are simply unwilling to risk it. So we won’t know for sure in the foreseeable future. Which is why we all have to make decisions on what risks we personally want to run.
And by the way, whichever alternative we pick, there is always the chance of the bass simply getting lost in transit, or even stolen, so we should always be careful to have insurance.
