Transporting frozen fish on plane fights?

[Pointyfish]

Planning to take some fish fillets to the oldies at christmas on a flight from Karratha WA to Brisbane including an overnight stay in Brisbane.
Was wondering if any one has any advise on the best way to pack frozen fish fillets for such a trip. Fillets will be out of the freezer for around 24hrs.
The plan at the moment is to get a cheap foam eskie , make a layer of block ice on the bottom , pack frozen fillets wrapped in newspaper in the middle and finish with layer of block ice on top. Eskie then sealed with tape.
Problem here is ice melting and making a fish fillet slurry. Would drink bottles of frozen water be adequate?
I would imagine that dry ice would be a definiate no on an aeroplane flight.
If any one has any advise it would be appreciated.
Cheers

[Volvo]

Pointyfish, i used to send Fish down to N.S.W. to my Mother and occasionally still do if she can muster someone to pick em up from the Airport..
So far rules as i know them are that they have to be packed in the appropriate foam cartons/boxes/eskies which can be purchased from your local Seafood Co-Op with the Fish symbol on the lid as well as the plastic liner which has to go around the Fish..
No Dry Ice allowable..
I wouldnt pack ice around the fish as you might find they will thaw out a tad quicker..
Karratha to brisvages is one ell of a trip for the fillets and cant say they wont start thawing out either??...
But!!,if they manage the distance first thing i would do soon as i get to to my first stop is get them into a freezer before heading off again and then repack them and away ya go..
Wrapping them in newspaper would be about all ide do beside making sure they was frozen solid to start with and seal foam box with some 2" masking tape stop air ingress..
If you can get the appropriate Foam carton check out with the flights section and so long as the Fish are wrapped in a plastic liner they might okay it..
Mind you your supposed to also state whats in the foam carton..
Hope thats helped ya along n good luck.
Cheers

[DICER]

If you have a good freezer to start with the better. If your freezer does -20 degrees then this is a good start. We use frozen ice blocks that are flat and rectangular to ship samples around for up to 24-36hrs. These are usually nice and flat blue or white, and should be frozen solid. We also use the blue silica gel packs as well. More mass to both your frozen blocks and filets will ensure that they are cold/frozen when you arrive at your o/n in brisbane. The flatter they are the better.

As Volvo said use a foam box and the least amount of air space and movement. A good seal helps. Don't think that there will be any restrictions at all. You might want to mark the foam box appropriately so it doesn't stay out on the tarmac too long.

Another tip is if you do use loose ice (-10 or so). You can do two things. Put salt a good dose of salt onto the ice and this will lower the temperature of the ice even further to about -15. It will go hard when you do this. Make sure the ice is packaged and cannot leak out later.

[isaac]

My oldies used to bring it over from Cairns to Perth when we were living over there every year and I still bring it back from Cairns to brissy now.

Fillets arrive frozen solid every time, what we do is use the free brocolli boxes you can get from any fruit and vege shop, make sure the fillets are frozen solid and pack any gaps around them with newspaper or teatowels. Then duct tape the lid on and duct tape around the box several times and put NO ICE on the lid with a marker, make sure you do this as it's a pain in butt when you have to open it all up for an inspection which happened to us once. I carry a roll of duct tape with me now just in case, oh and another thing don't carry duct tape in your cabin luggage as its a dangerous item now. One of the normal brocolli boxes take approx 20kg of fillet to fill so try and match your fillets with box size. cheers Isaac.

[Jim_Tait]

I got bailed up at the check in trying to bring a frozen barra home last week. I had it frozen solid, double wrapped in plastic, insulated in wrapped and masking taped neswpaper and then carried in a plastic zipped carry bag - was refused permission to carry it on due to risk that saltwater may drip into plane etc, etc (was a freshwater fish) - made me furuious at the time as had no time to pursue other options and the Virgin Blue robot behind the counter told me that 'our regulations state - fish must be frozen solid in sealed, double lined heavy duty plastic bags and then placed in taped foam box (these are the regs), blah, blah.

I've prevbiously brought frozen black bass filet back from PNG in the same manner as I'd prepared the barra and it was still frozen when I got back to Oz - have grown up in the aviation industry and knew what I had done was sufficent in terms of avoiding risk to airframe or luggage - saw red. I sprinted across the airport to an air freight carrier who said they stopped stocking foam boxes a month ago - then jumped into my hire car (10 minutes to boarding) and sped to the three closest corner stores which had all ran out of brocilli boxes!! Had to give in in the end - was disappointed as kids expected dad to be bringing barra home and it was planned to be consumed at the wife's birthday BBQ that weekend. Luckily organised a friend to pick it up from the counter and got on the plane fuming - the lady bedside me thought I was an agro head - until i skulled a couple of rums and mellowed out and told her my sad story :'(

[frankj]

Hi,
We just pack in plastic bags, wrap in newspaper and seal in polystyrene boxes and all OK. But not as far as you are going. Why not try it at home first, wrap some fillets as you would for the flight then just check the condition every 8 hours. That would be a worse case as you would be opening the package, but it would prove it for you before you go.

Cheers
Frankj

[kc]

Having sent an awful lot of fish back for guests over the years (and having worked for Ansett)the definative answer is.

Freeze hard.

Wrap in plastic . Put in foam packing box or esky and fill all airspace with newspaper.

Seal esky/box with duct tape and then write on lid in large black letters..

Frozen Fish. No Ice. Packed to airline standards......you will have no problems.

KC

[Pointyfish]

Cheers guys. I'm talk to Qantas before the flight to aviod having to open the package up at the terminal I think.

[chanquetas]

Pointyfish. I have flown frozen fish from Karratha to Brisbane myself as a matter of fact. And I have seen other people try a variety of ways to do it. Follow KCs advice, it is spot on.
As we speak I am defrosting a Red Emperor which did this trip. After 20 hours in a broccoli box it arrived home rock hard, even the thin tail fin snapped when I tried to bend it.

Make sure you fill the spaces with scrunched up paper, and if possible freeze the whole box with the lid off for a few days, then put the lid on and mask it well to stop the air escaping.

One more thing, try to freeze the whole gutted and cleaned fish rather than fillets, leaving the scales on. You will get a better result.

If you get the 1083 Ktha to Perth then the Perth to Brissie at 1720 gets you to Brissie at 2330. Too easy.
I just flew home yesterday, got home last night!