Marion,

Would it make any sense at all to see if you can borrow a fiddle where you're going? I know it wouldn't be *your* fiddle, but I've a friend who plays stand-up bass who deals with this all the time, and that's often what she does. I'm with just about everyone else on the thread: complain, yell, scream, show up at the door with the fiddle, pitch a fit, but don't let them put it underneath the airplane! I once got an animal back at the end of the flight in an upside-down cage. Made me shudder to think what had happened in between me delivering him to the baggage folks safe in his kennel, and finding him at the other end upside down. If that could happen to a pet, when they know they're dealing with a living thing, what could happen to an inanimate object?

I have to travel all the time for work, and I always take my fiddle with me so I can practice (with a mute) in the hotel room. I have always been able to carry the fiddle on board--I've never asked ahead of time, always just took it as one of my two carry-on pieces, and I've never been challenged. It's clearly smaller than many of those wheeled pieces of carry-on luggage.

Whatever you decide, good luck!

Turtle