Information wanted on violins/ guitars in your hand luggage

[webewitch]

My son will be going on holiday to the UK and we are considering buying him an electric violin whilst there to avoid extra postage and the inevitable over charging for tax if we had it delivered here.

Our concern is whether he'll be allowed to take it on board - in its hard case - as hand luggage.

Ryanair clearly state you need to buy a violin a seat if you want to take it personally on board.

Does anyone have recent experience with other airlines? - I'm assuming there will be more people who've tried this with guitars than violins.

[jeste747]

I bought my guitar over in a hard case, as checked in luggage, just paid the normal amount for a bag, that was with Monarch. Sorry cant help on other airlines.

[grumps]

It purely depends on the airline...you can bring it as normal checked in baggage with most but ryanair charge more this way so i take the neck off my guitar and bring it in a case with a soft guitar case. I would have thought you could get this in a normal case and then you can use the extra space to maximise your weight allowance.