I told the checkin lady that I needed to make a firearms declaration. She fumbled around in her drawer of forms for a little bit and she couldn't find whatever she needed. She said "just to make sure I understand what you need, do you want to check a weapon in your baggage or carry one on the plane?" I didn't know that was an option! Anyone else ever been offered to do that?
Not wanting to get in trouble with the TSA, I told her it would be in checked baggage. She looked in a few other drawers and finally pulled out two forms. She filled out a white page and an orange postcard. She had me sign and date the postcard and place it in my luggage, and she kept the white paper.
Meanwhile, a baggage handler, an Ethiopian or Egyptian guy, mid-20s, was giving me the eye from behind the counter. I didn't like it at all.
The United lady finished the paperwork but was unable to place my luggage on the magic conveyer there. She asked a supervisor where to take weapons. And the supervisor was clearly overwhelmed with a number of other issues from a large group of foreigners and he was shouting instructions loudly to a number of his workers. He very loudly said, "I'VE GOT A WEAPON! CAN YOU TAKE THE WEAPON TO TSA FOR ME?" And that particular employee was busy with something else. So he loudly asked another employee to handle the weapon. Not discrete at all. My eyes turned back to the baggage handler.
Anyway, an Airserv contractor escorted me to a special area called something like "TSA Baggage", where TSA was supposed to inspect my baggage. There wasn't anyone there, so she had to go back to the United counter and get the supervisor to call TSA and have an agent meet me at the special area.
The Airserv contractor did nothing but complain to me the whole time, about how poorly United treats the contractors.
Finally TSA showed up. He took my checked bag and and opened it and swabbed the inside of my bag (presumably for explosive or drugs). He asked me to open the lockbox and he briefly looked inside (didn't even look to see if the gun was loaded). He had me lock it back up and he zipped up my suitcase. He placed a small orange sticker on my baggage tag that said "TSA checked". I'm not sure if that was legal or not, since it didn't specifically say "firearm".
He handed my suitcase back to the Airserv contractor and directed her to take it to another TSA area for direct loading onto the aircraft. And then he told me I was good to go. I said thank you and casually followed the Airserv lady for a little bit, just to make sure there was no funny business. I saw my suitcase get handed over to another worker and then I lost track of it.
I waited in the lobby for a 10-15 minutes before going thru security just to make sure I wasn't needed for anything else. I went to the TSA precheck aisle, and the lady there told me they closed at 9 (it was 9:01). Well that was a waste of $80 for precheck.
There were a number of other problems with the flight being delayed, etc. But fortunately when I got to my destination everything came through just fine. I was a little worried
