What size cooler to fly back 50lbs of meat??

[MattB]

Does anyone here know with certainty whether Alaska Airlines allows dry ice? Since I struck out in AK this year, it was a non-issue, but I had planned on fish boxes with dry ice. And I didn't have time to freeze meat before flying home, so I think I would've needed the dry ice.

I typed "Alaska airlines dry ice" into google and the link to the full policy came up.

 

[Loebs]

5.5lb dry ice per person carry-on or checked. If checked Packaging must release co2 gas and include"DRY ICE" or "CARBON DIOXIDE, SOLID". State weight and contents.

This is from Southwest Airlines. To meet the venting requirement just take a straw and stick it out of the zipper on a soft side coolers. If it's in a plastic tote bin just drill a small hole in the lid to vent the CO2.

Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk

 

[Krieg Hetzen]

You don’t really need to put things on dry ice. I sent a buddy home with 30+lbs of moose this year in a canvas insulated tote from Costco (like a big lunch box). It was in the bag for 10 hours or so and still rock hard when he got home. And the meat didn’t come from some big commercial deep freeze either. We stuffed the tote in the freezer with the meat the night before to ‘precharge’ it, filled it with meat at around 9am AKST and he was putting it in his freezer at 6pm PST.

Also if you are dead set on a cooler I ran a Coleman extreme 70 quart for hunting. Precharged it (3 sacrificial bags of ice 2 days before leaving), put in all our frozen foods the day we left and filled the rest with ice. There was still ice in the water 11 days later when I had to clean it out. Cooler spent the first 6 days in the high 20s to mid 50s and the last 5 days in the mid 40s to low 70s in direct sunlight for both locations.

 

[Gatorgrizz27]

We used the $15 48 qt Rubbermaid coolers from Wal Mart last year. Meat had already been processed and frozen, we put dry ice on it as we had to spend the night back in Denver before flying out the next day.

Robot or human?

The meat has to be frozen solid according to their regs, you can’t fly it otherwise. We wrapped it with duct tape twice from top to bottom, just carry the rest of the roll with you in case they make you open it.

Like flying with firearms, you can’t really expect the agent you get to know the regs, it comes down to how they feel about it unless you’ve know you’re doing it properly and have an extra hour to find a supervisor.

Have a photo of us borrowing the hotel gym scale to weigh all our meat coolers.

 

[mpodkolzin]

I'm sorry if that's dump question, but on the way TO hunt, do you use ice chests just as regular luggage case and have your stuff (like clothes) in there?

 

[7Bartman]

according to their regs, you can’t fly it otherwise. We wrapped it with duct tape twice from top to bottom, just carry the rest of the roll with you in case they make you open it.

Exactly what I've done the last three years. This year I was able to get the meat to a processor so I brought back 180+lbs. Three boxes and both backstraps and tenderloins in my polar bear cooler. No problems whatsoever other than TSA taking forever to get the knots out of the trashbags that I froze the backstraps in at the hotel. After going through the scanner in the TSA precheck lane, they wanted to see what was in the polar bear. Remember, no weight restrictions on carry-on bags.