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Last week I flew from Dallas-Ft Worth to Orlando, Florida, on American Airlines. Overall, traveling with two handguns, a Kahr PM9 and a Keltec P32, here is what I encountered. Obviously this could be just my encounters, ymmv.

1. They (American Airlines) are VERY interested in the fact that your ammo is in a "FACTORY" box. Even though I took a mix of 32 and 9, I put them both in a Winchester factory box. They closely examined the box, but not what was in it.

2. At DFW, they didn't even have me open the locked case. BTW, I used a softside suitcase because it had the tubes from the handle in the main compartment, I wrapped the cable around these tubes. So if you wanted to steal the locked case, you basically would have had to steal the whole suitcase.

3. At Florida, they had me open the case to let them look in, but they didn't handle. BTW, these are only AA ticket agents looking at my stuff, not TSA.

4. I was never walked to an xray machine with TSA, apparently they have a new policy (overheard from two ticket agents discussing the fact that they just put my suitcases on the conveyor belt) that it just goes on the conveyer belt and obviously they catch it on the xray machine. I had to sign a form that stated what was in the case. At FL, I got smart and used some tape to affix the form to the case so that it wasn't just loose in the suitcase.

So overall very easy, but remember I was going between two very gun friendly states and I obviously wasn't the first one to be helped by these particular agents.

Funny note, in FL, I am waiting in line and a ticket agent comes over to tell us that we can use the self check-in and I say,
"That's ok, I need to stay in this line."

She asks "Why, did you have a bad experience with self check-in?"

I very quietly lean over and say "No, because I have to declare a firearm in my checked luggage"

She replies, "Yeah, you had better stay in that line" :)