Hello everyone, since moving to 4x5" film I did fly a lot in Europe and, since it looks like all threads about flying with film concern roll film, I wanted to offer my experience so far and ask a couple of questions as well.
Here's my experience. When I travel, I stay on the road for a long time (2-3 months) and, therefore, I carry a lot of film (about 10 boxes of 4x5" Ilford FP4+). I went through many airports, always asking for hand inspection. Here's my results:
- Rome Fiumicino, Milan Linate, London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Keflavik: passed multiple times from these, no problem getting film hand-checked. Boxes got an explosives' swap and I was good to go.
- Glasgow: passed twice, both times I had to have my boxes go through x-ray. The second time they had CT scans machines in my line, the operator readily accepted it wasn't good for film, but was adamant that he either had to open the box or get the film through x-ray. I went for x-ray.
- Faroe Islands Vagar airport: the operator accepted hand-inspection and handed the boxes over to a colleague who tried to open them!! He definitely had absolutely no idea about what he was handling. Film had to go through x-ray or get opened - I of course went for the latter.
I think that carrying a lot of boxes makes me more "suspicious" than having just one or two; and, while people in threads I found assumes that sheet film would be treated exactly as roll film, I would tend to disagree, out of my experience. I think a roll film would be understood as such, and treated as such, much more readily and easily than a box - and, to be fair, for good reasons, since a box could potentially contain anything.
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This is my experience, now my questions. I will travel extensively in the second half of 2025, and would love to hear from people with experience getting film - better if sheet film - through the following airports:
- Barcelona
- Bilbao
- Madrid
- Portland, PDX
- Las Vegas, LAS (international terminal)
Compiling a sheet-film-specific resource of how world-wide airports deal with our favourite mean of expression would seem useful!
Best regards,
Vieri
Here's my experience. When I travel, I stay on the road for a long time (2-3 months) and, therefore, I carry a lot of film (about 10 boxes of 4x5" Ilford FP4+). I went through many airports, always asking for hand inspection. Here's my results:
- Rome Fiumicino, Milan Linate, London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Keflavik: passed multiple times from these, no problem getting film hand-checked. Boxes got an explosives' swap and I was good to go.
- Glasgow: passed twice, both times I had to have my boxes go through x-ray. The second time they had CT scans machines in my line, the operator readily accepted it wasn't good for film, but was adamant that he either had to open the box or get the film through x-ray. I went for x-ray.
- Faroe Islands Vagar airport: the operator accepted hand-inspection and handed the boxes over to a colleague who tried to open them!! He definitely had absolutely no idea about what he was handling. Film had to go through x-ray or get opened - I of course went for the latter.
I think that carrying a lot of boxes makes me more "suspicious" than having just one or two; and, while people in threads I found assumes that sheet film would be treated exactly as roll film, I would tend to disagree, out of my experience. I think a roll film would be understood as such, and treated as such, much more readily and easily than a box - and, to be fair, for good reasons, since a box could potentially contain anything.
---
This is my experience, now my questions. I will travel extensively in the second half of 2025, and would love to hear from people with experience getting film - better if sheet film - through the following airports:
- Barcelona
- Bilbao
- Madrid
- Portland, PDX
- Las Vegas, LAS (international terminal)
Compiling a sheet-film-specific resource of how world-wide airports deal with our favourite mean of expression would seem useful!
Best regards,
Vieri