A thread at alt.rec.hiking discusses the usual issues of whether to take a fuel bottle on a plane (in a word: no) and what to do to avoid pack straps getting caught in baggage-handling machinery. This looked like an interesting tip:
What we have done is show up at the airport with a couple of boxes of Saran
Wrap in our carry on, wear the backpacks to the checkout line, then take out
the Saran Wrap and wrap our backpacks with it making it several layers thick
and pulling it tight as we do it. We found this to work very well, is
fairly cheap, and we don’t have to go find a special place at the airport
where they provide some sort of service or sell a box or whatever. We have
done this with child car seats also with really good results.
Where would this world be without duct tape and Saran wrap?
The only problem I can see is if they decide to search it. Then just like any closed locks you might have on your luggage, they are going to cut through them, and leave you with a mess.
Hmmn, the saran wrap thing sounds interesting. Sort of. Usually, I’ve just found a duffle bag with handles that’s big enough to hold the pack. LLBean had them at one point, so I got one, and it’s worked fine.
Carolyn makes a good point about airport seaches.
I just make some simple arrangements with my pack, closing and tightening the sternum strap, and closing the hip belt with it wrapped back around the front of the pack. That usually means things won’t snag.
Another tip. Sometimes you might have something in the pack that could cause some concern. For example, airlines in Europe are a bit iffy sometimes over multi-fuel bottles of the kind that are used to power Dragonfly-type stoves. I always make sure these are washed out. I always put them right at the top of hte pack – if somebody sees it on an X Ray and wants to have a look they can easily get it out without disturbing the rest of the contents. And there often are tell-take signs of them having taken a look!
I just returned from a backpacking trip in Glacier. I put my (empty) backpack in a trashbag w/ ‘drawstrings’, closed it and then taped it down to remove the air/fluff.
The gal ticket counter said that would work fine. If TSA needed to open it, they would tape it back up. This would work better than the Saran Wrap idea because the trash bag would essentially still be in one piece.
I looked into the duffle bag, but I just didn’t want to put out more money for something that would only get used a few times a year. Most of my trips are driving distance.