Virgin Flights - Locking luggage

[FloJo]

I noticed a thread recently about locking luggage on Virgin fights and the consensous seemed to be to leave them unlocked.

I've just spoken to someone at Virgin and he confirmed that:

'As an Airline they recommend locking all luggage but to be aware that the US has the right to force a case open if it is thought to be suspicious'

Hope this helps everyone.

 

[minniemick]

It is alright to lock your case going to America but it is best to put cable ties on coming home & when they check the case they replace the cable ties. When we came back from Los angeles they were checking all cases.

 

[BiGGy]

All our cases were opened and checked last week on the way back, and looked like a lot of others had been too.

blue security cable ties were used and security stickers on the hard cases that they couldnt use the cable ties on.


Rgds
BiGGy

 

[steve_rob]

Generally most bags (about 50%) are being searched on flights taking off from American airports but very rarely are they being searched on flights landing there from the UK.

Take cable ties for the return journey or if you have a suitcase with a combination lock, when you hand it over tell them it's currently in the unlocked position and ask if they could change the combination after searching it. They did this for me - my case was locked when I got it back at Gatwick.

 

[radamson]

I'm quite confused (it doesn't take much!!)

I thought they would be more concerned about what is coming into the country rather than what was leaving it. i.e. I thought they would be checking cases coming into the country rather than those leaving.

Can anyone explain?

Becky

 

[Tartan Tigger]

I flew with Virgin in June and July of this year and locked all the luggage on both flights and the bags weren't searched at all.

 

[Shugmac]

We flew with Virgin in September/October and we took the advice of putting cable ties on the cases and a small pair of nailclippers in one of the case pockets. The cases were not checked on the way out but coming back 2 of our cases had been checked but the cable ties had been replaced with another cable tie by the security and a note had been put in the case saying that they had been checked. I was happier knowing that there was some sort of lock on our cases. There was signs up about the chance your cases might be opened. So i would say cable tie them it's better than your lock being burst and having no lock at all, and it really wasnt any trouble at the other end opening them, hubby managed to get some small ones so they didnt look so bad.

Sharon.