Airline companies are a surfers best friend and worst enemy. They lure us in with the ability to travel beyond our means in a timely matter. Consequently draining our hard earned savings along with taking an arm & a leg. We are co-dependent upon each other, they need us – we need them. What we don’t need is outrageous fee’s to bring along our favorite traveling companions, our surfboards. My hope is that change is ahead, and sooner rather than later. Recently a big step was made towards that change or at least a possible start.
Professional surfer Cheyne Magnusson booked a flight to Indonesia with China Airlines. To no ones surprise, he was overcharged for his surfboards. A ridiculous $1050 to take his surfboards with him to Bali, Indonesia. Often times we find ourselves paying more than the worth of our surfboards. Most times this happens we get heated then are calmed by a fun wave filled trip. However, Cheyne took his frustration out on China Airlines’ facebook page. The conversation is posted below.
This was great to see! But the best is yet to come. The real progress happened when Kelly Slater got involved. Kelly simply Tweeted and Instagramed the following along with a picture of Cheyne’s facbook conversation with China Airlines.
“@kellyslater : @redtide83 Cheyne Magnusson…I hope you don’t mind me reporting this @chinaairlines comment. Figured you wanted to spread the word to surfers traveling on them. Time to address these ridiculous airline surfboard charges directly. #SizeAndWeight not ‘Number of Boards’.”
We’ve all been thinking it and now we have the best surfer in the world standing up against airline companies and their outrageous policies. Kelly’s post recieved over 300 comments on Instagram and nearly 5,000 likes. With a whopping total of 155,000 followers on Instagram and 231,000 on Twitter plus the multiple repost on popular sites like surfermag.com and surline.com you better believe China Airlines will be loosing a whole lot more money than they made off of overcharging Cheyne. Further down the list of comments was another one from Kelly saying, “Everyone start posting pics / stories of all airlines over-charging ridiculous prices and just blast them on social media.” Pretty cool to hear that from surfings greatest ambassador and one of the worlds most influential athletes. There is no doubt that at this point in Kelly’s career he is more than able to cover the cost of these charges and then some, but this truly shows Kelly’s character and care for our sport & the surf community.
Now we all know boards are a nuisance for airline companies. They are larger than average baggage and fragile. We are not fighting for no charge, although that would be nice, just simply a fair and consistent price. No more surprises at the counter, and prices varying based on the current mood of an employee. Kelly even said in the same post, “Not saying we shouldn’t get a charge but based on the value of a board and the size / weight, make it reasonable and cost effective both ways.” Let’s make some positive change and start to improve this problem. I encourage everyone to do as Kelly said and blast the airlines on social media, repost this write-up, email the airlines directly, or even just tell a friend.
Send your love directly to the airlines that charge you the most, or even just send them a link to this post!! 
brurrci@china-airlines.com (China Airlines)
https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/Contact/customer/default.aspx?camp=virtual_expert (United Airlines)
http://www.koreanair.com/local/na/gp/eng/ft/cu/eng_ft_cu_cs_main.jsp (Korean Airlines)
Feel free to post in the comments, names and contacts of airlines that need to make some changes.
