Skiff

Fedex has a great guide to packing perishable materials Here. (Note: PDF)

kipper

Mr. Kipper and his father are out in the wilds of Wyoming hunting, and my FIL shot an elk. There's about 200 pounds of elk meat that we'd like to bring home. They each have 2 bags already that are their free bags.

We've looked at shipping the meat via FedEx or UPS, but they want between $900 and $1,200 to ship it for next day delivery.

They were considering paying the additional bag fees (from what we can tell, $120) to take 4 coolers worth of frozen elk meat via their UA flights.

Any issues with my math, or any issues with them transporting home that way?

OUFan76

I have to imagine there are some extra fees for a dead animal considering United will not even let me purchase a first class ticket for my puppy. I hope I am wrong though, good luck! Sounds like an amazing trip.

dmodemd

I think the add'l bag fees are the best deal you can find for shipping that cargo! Good luck! Just pack with ice. I see them loading boxes of fish in Seattle all the time. They are carboard boxes, lined with plastic and packed with ice and fish! No problem...

PVDProf

The fish are in wax-lined cardboard boxes (or coolers). You can pack it with up to 5lbs of dry ice per box (I think), which I think they prefer to ice that melts and can drip on people's luggage. I'm sure airline staff in Wyoming are used to this sort of thing, and could probably provide information if you called them.

fastair

Shipments usiong dry ice are not cheap ($175 per container) and need to be packed in such a way as to allow the sublimated CO2 to vent. It will require addl checkin time as well as it will need to be inspected and labeled. http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6722,52830,00.html

At 50 lbs/each, I am pretty sure a deep freeze would hold for a very long time (ever try to defrost a big cut of meat in an inclosed insulated box, if so, you realize you won't be cooking it any time soon!)

aacharya

I'm seeing $100 for that, if I follow the normal baggage limit links. Something tells me that page you linked wasn't updated.

kipper

We were hoping to just have everything frozen pretty solid and not pack dry ice, due to the extra fees associated with that.
We were planning to just not use dry ice, and hope things didn't melt too much in transit.

bentruler

Then this is not a situation to use a cheap cooler. Some of the 6 day Igloos would likely be a good investment.

I've got one of thse http://www.igloocoolers.com/Coolers_...MaxCold-Roller and it's great, never flown with it. Problem is going to be the color weighs 17 lbs on its own.

http://www.igloocoolers.com/Coolers_...Football-Field might work, not sure about the density of Elk meat.

Looks to me like it's $100 a bag...

FlyinHawaiian

I have transported frozen salmon/halibut from Canada to Hawai`i several times using both waxed boxes and store-bought coolers. I figure they were in transit at least 8 hours and they always arrived in good shape.

The coolers are nice as they have handles/wheels. The trick is to freeze everything solid, minimize any air pockets in the packing, and seal the items with duct tape.

Jorgen

I don't think dry ice is what you want. Airlines and the TSA are both understandably hesitant about having huge clods of solid carbon dioxide sublimating away in the cargo hold during flight.

As I understand it, the TSA limits dry ice to four pounds per passenger. And United will charge you extra for carrying it: http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6722,52830,00.html

That's $175 each way just for your dry ice. And four pounds of dry ice won't do much to keep two hundred pounds of moose (sorry, elk) cold.

So, yeah, water ice is the way to go. A decent cooler plus a bit of water ice should easily keep your meat good and frozen for the duration. Apparently there are no problems with taking a cooler on board, but I'd plan to show up at the counter early with the coolers plus a huge roll of tape, ask them about whether it needs to be inspected, and then tape it shut.

kipper

Where are you getting the $100/bag? With the dry ice?

bentruler

So they're looking at 4 or 5 additional 50 lb bags, right? (Total of 8 or 9 bags between the two of them.)

At that point you're in Excess Baggage territory, not first and 2nd bag territory.

http://www.united.com/page/article/1,,53403,00.html

kipper

Their first 2 bags each are free, but then we'd be looking at probably another 4 bags total.

kipper

Mr. Kipper picked up a cheap cooler, and loaded it with frozen elk meat until it weighed 49 pounds. They were picking up the game while I was completing their online check-in. For some reason, they were each allowed to check 3 bags at no fee. While they opted to only take 1 cooler of meat, it was nice to have the option to take additional meat. They picked up a 10 pound block of dry ice since they were picking up the game about 24 hours before their flight. That kept it frozen and they simply ditched the dry ice before checking the cooler. The meat made it safely to PIT still frozen, and when I met Mr. Kipper, I had several ice packs that we used to keep it frozen until we got home. Our freezer is now packed with elk! I don't quite know where we'd have stored all of it if he opted to take 2 coolers!