I have good quality hardshells (Calton, Hiscox, etc.) for all my instruments and that's how they travel if there's a serious risk of a bad knock. I also now use good quality gigbags when going to a local session or gig in my car or for keeping the dust off instruments at home, or when they can be under my surveillance at all times, e.g. short-scale tenor (which is a fairly tough instrument anyway)in an overhead aircraft locker. The gigbag here takes up half the space of the hard case and is always allowed through while many airlines would force the hard case through baggage handling which I would not trust.

P.S. When travelling with my precious mandolin and its Calton case, some halfwit (not The Popular Halfwit!) at Waterloo Station in London knbocked a shelf full of glass shampoo bottles onto the Calton in a branch of Bodyshop and took a humungous chip out of the side of it, so even the best case can be damaged (the mandolin however was fine which is the most important thing!). The shop agreed to pay for the repair to the case but in the event I did it myself with epoxy and a little enamel paint the right colour!

mooman