New policy for Qatar started as of March 2025 for firearms?

[Wildwillalaska]

Will, I will be flying the same route from Anchorage to JNB via Alaska Airlines and Qatar Airways in May as well. I contacted Qatar Airways (specialservices@us.qatarairways.com) and informed them of my plans to fly with my firearms. Now they are fully aware and it shows up on my Qatar itinerary that I will be traveling with firearms.

I strongly recommend you contact specialservices@us.qatarairways.com to coordinate within the next week or so.

Thank you for the heads up, I will. Did you book the trip through Alaska Air as well? When are you traveling out? We leave middle of the month.

 

[375 Ruger Fan]

FWIW, I am having to do the same thing with United/Lufthansa flight to Namibia later this year. I have a short flight to Houston on United and will collect my bag and rifle there and then check in at the Lufthansa counter. I have a 4 hour layover in Houston, so shouldn't be too bad.

 

[Troubleshooter]

You can absolutely do it if you claim baggage in DFW and recheck it at DFW.

Experienced a similar issue with AA and Qatar in 2023. Short answer was that the duffel bag was transferred from AA to Qatar but the gun case needed to be picked up and checked-in at the Qatar counter.

Jennifer at Travel Express told me that is what I would need to do, but upon landing in Philly (outbound leg of the flights) for my transfer, the crew at Qatar called my cell phone and told me that they had my bag and to proceed directly to their counter for the firearms formalities. How they could have "had my bag" was a bit of a mystery because they called just after the AA flight landed and we were still on the apron taxiing towards the gate, but... I proceeded to the international terminal where they again informed me that they "had my bag" but that I was not allowed to travel with firearm and ammunition in the same bag. OK, but the rifles were not in the duffel, they are in a separate gun case. That's when they figured out that AA had checked the duffel through to Windhoek but the gun case only to Philadelphia. Because of this, the gun case wasn't showing on their system. One of the QA agents and I made a bit of a mad scramble across the airport, retrieved the gun case, and the rest went smoothly from there.

Seems like more of an ongoing communication issue than a new policy. At least, from where I sit.

 

[JimP]

In June of 2022 I checked my bags all the way through from Denver to Joberg on AA and then Qatar. Qatar did change their firearm check in process to where the gate agent couldn't accept the firearm form so we had to leave the secured area and stand in line at that Qatar check in area. A nice gentleman saw what was happening and came to our rescue and took care of it quite quickly even with our group having around 15 people in it, all with firearms.

It's just our constantly changing policies that we have to deal with.

This is why I harp on people to get a TA who knows what is going on since most of us do not stay up on the requirements and will constantly be confused by them.

 

[Scott CWO]

Experienced a similar issue with AA and Qatar in 2023. Short answer was that the duffel bag was transferred from AA to Qatar but the gun case needed to be picked up and checked-in at the Qatar counter.

Jennifer at Travel Express told me that is what I would need to do, but upon landing in Philly (outbound leg of the flights) for my transfer, the crew at Qatar called my cell phone and told me that they had my bag and to proceed directly to their counter for the firearms formalities. How they could have "had my bag" was a bit of a mystery because they called just after the AA flight landed and we were still on the apron taxiing towards the gate, but... I proceeded to the international terminal where they again informed me that they "had my bag" but that I was not allowed to travel with firearm and ammunition in the same bag. OK, but the rifles were not in the duffel, they are in a separate gun case. That's when they figured out that AA had checked the duffel through to Windhoek but the gun case only to Philadelphia. Because of this, the gun case wasn't showing on their system. One of the QA agents and I made a bit of a mad scramble across the airport, retrieved the gun case, and the rest went smoothly from there.

Seems like more of an ongoing communication issue than a new policy. At least, from where I sit.

Yeah always claim and recheck if you start out on a different airline. It’s a pain but once you’re done, it is reassuring to know that Qatar will make sure your firearm case and suitcase with ammo makes it to your destination and is transferred in Doha to your second Qatar connection flight to Africa.

Another issue to know is if Qatar farms out the flight from Doha to Africa to Oman Airlines, only Gracy Travel can get your firearm case cleared with Oman Airlines. Travel Express couldn’t get it done for us in November 2023. Gracy has way more experience when it comes to procedures if traveling to less popular destinations with firearms. TE works fine for South Africa and a few other destinations but they don’t do the volume of business that Gracy does around the world to be able to know and solve other issues.

 

[Russ16]

Experienced a similar issue with AA and Qatar in 2023. Short answer was that the duffel bag was transferred from AA to Qatar but the gun case needed to be picked up and checked-in at the Qatar counter.

Jennifer at Travel Express told me that is what I would need to do, but upon landing in Philly (outbound leg of the flights) for my transfer, the crew at Qatar called my cell phone and told me that they had my bag and to proceed directly to their counter for the firearms formalities. How they could have "had my bag" was a bit of a mystery because they called just after the AA flight landed and we were still on the apron taxiing towards the gate, but... I proceeded to the international terminal where they again informed me that they "had my bag" but that I was not allowed to travel with firearm and ammunition in the same bag. OK, but the rifles were not in the duffel, they are in a separate gun case. That's when they figured out that AA had checked the duffel through to Windhoek but the gun case only to Philadelphia. Because of this, the gun case wasn't showing on their system. One of the QA agents and I made a bit of a mad scramble across the airport, retrieved the gun case, and the rest went smoothly from there.

Seems like more of an ongoing communication issue than a new policy. At least, from where I sit.

This is exactly why I don’t booked domestic to international connections on the same itenerary. Even when flying on a single airline and even without guns. I always book my international based on what city I get the best price and schedule then book a separate domestic flight to that city.

You can often get much better prices that way as well. When flying without guns I often get better prices to Europe from NY than DC. Easy enough to just grab a train up and fly out of NY instead.

 

[yhc]

Thank you for the heads up, I will. Did you book the trip through Alaska Air as well? When are you traveling out? We leave middle of the month.

I will DM you, Will.