Legal certainty when transporting instruments
The European Commission (EC) requires airlines to disclose their conditions for transporting instruments in the passenger cabin of aircraft in future.
At present, musicians who want to keep valuable and fragile instruments close to them during a flight can never know exactly whether they will be rejected when boarding the aircraft and according to what criteria.
A European law due to come into force in 2014 will now ensure that instruments may only be rejected on the grounds of safety and previously disclosed technical criteria.
A memo from the EC dated March 13 outlines the content of the planned law and demands that national authorities monitor the enforcement of the provisions. The International Federation of Musicians welcomes the initiative.
