Getting fish & meat home from Alaska

npaden said:

Okay, if you don't know it already, I'm pretty much a tightwad. I hate to spend money on things that I don't need to.

I've been looking at my options on hopefully bringing back a black bear skull and some meat from POW this spring along with possibly some fish if we end up tagging out early enough to do some fishing.

Flying from Lubbock, there is only one flight that I can book roundtrip that gets to Ketchikan and back in a day and that is via American Airlines. The flight is very reasonable at $657, but American is VERY expensive on excess baggage fees. It's $60 each way for the first 2 bags under 50 pounds and then $150 for the 3rd bag and $200 for the 4th+ bags. If you go over 50 pounds it is an extra $100 for each bag. If I hauled home all the meat from a bear and had a couple good days fishing I could end up spending more on baggage fees than on the ticket.

My other option is to book to Seattle on Southwest and switch airlines in Seattle going and coming. On the way there it wouldn't be too bad, when it is all said and done it would take 2 hours longer and I would have to recheck a firearm at the Seattle airport.

Coming home, I would end up with a 7 hour layover in the Seattle airport from 10:40 pm to 5:30 am. If I was successful I would need to do something with a few boxes of meet during this time. The overall flights would take just 5 hours longer getting home and be under 24 hours though.

Doing it this way the baggage fees would be just $50 for the first 2 bags on Alaska Airlines and then $75 per bag on the extras. With Southwest the first 2 bags are free and then $75 for the extras. Even having to pay the $75 twice it ends up cheaper because both Alaska Airlines and Southwest Airlines don't add the overweight charge if they are already charging the extra bag fee. So I could make those extra bags up to 100 pounds each.

Assuming I ended up with 200 pounds of meat/skull/fish to take home with me, I would be spending $1,110 for baggage on American Airlines vs. $350 for Alaskan/Southwest Airlines assuming I can pack the boxes close to 100 pounds.

I'm leaning toward booking via Alaskan and Southwest, but I'm not sure how much of a pain it would be dealing with the boxes of meat and rechecking my rifle in Seattle.

FedExing stuff home would be about as expensive as bag checking it with American. DHL seems like it would be a little cheaper, about $175 per 50 pound box. If I sent my backpack and hunting gear home via UPS I could save one bag worth of cost, but that seems like putting a bandaid on a bleeding artery.

If I end up unsuccessful I will end up spending some quality time in the airport in Seattle instead of being on the red eye flight from Seattle to Dallas all for nothing, but the success rates on this hunt seem pretty good.

Anyone dealt with something like this? Am I crazy thinking about spending the night in the Seattle airport with a rifle and several boxes of meat/fish? Am I crazy to think I can pack a couple 100lb boxes of meat/fish or should I plan on making them lighter and just paying more?

Thanks, Nathan

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