'UNTHINKABLE'

Soloist Forced to Carry 243-Year-Old Violin Onto Flight Wrapped in Nothing But a Sweater

Carolin Widmann wasn’t allowed to bring the priceless instrument in its case as hand luggage.

A soloist was forced to carry her 1782 Giovanni Battista Guadagnini violin in her arms through the Helsinki airport security and onto a flight to Germany after Lufthansa refused to let her bring the case as hand luggage. Carolin Widmann, who plays an average of 60 international concerts per year, had “tears running down her cheeks” as she wrapped the “precious and beloved” instrument in a sweater and held it for the entire flight from Helsinki, Finland, to Frankfurt, Germany, and then on to Leipzig, she wrote in a post on Instagram. Widmann said she’s a regular Lufthansa flyer and had never had a problem carrying her instrument. But this time, the ground crew in Helsinki refused to let her carry it on the plane, so she offered to buy a ticket for the violin. That wasn’t possible, though, because the flight from Frankfurt to Leipzig was fully booked, and the airline’s representatives told her she had to check the 243-year-old violin as if it were a regular suitcase. This, of course, was not an option, Widmann wrote, so she was forced to “do the unthinkable” and travel with the “bare” violin, out of its case, from Helsinki to Frankfurt and finally Leipzig.