The other year, I flew from Prestwick to Stansted with my old Yamaha. RyanAir would not let me take it as hand baggage, but put a "Fragile" label on it. When we arrived I went to the point where I should have picked it up. Suddenly I saw it coming down the shute onto the carousel - nut end first. There was about a 12 foot slide and it then hit a very solid plate at quite a speed with a big bang. Thank god it was in a Hiscox Liteflite case - it wasn't damaged at all. I complained to the staff and was told that they havn't got the staff to deliver fragile items separately at night.

Since then I have taken my small "Art & Lutherie" guitar with me (it fits in a 3/4 size case) and have never had any trouble getting it on as hand baggage.

On a previous thread about flight cases, there were quite a lot of posings about how good Hiscox cases were.