"I'm kind of hoping the airline really will lose my starter flute."
What brand and model is it? Flutes are a glut on the market on eBay. I saw a decent open-hole Selmer go for $50 the other day. You can't sell a flute on eBay these days. All the nasty Chinese imports are taking up all the space, and nobody's wading through the listings at all. Do a search on misspellings of makers' names. This was was listed as a "Selmar." Since nobody's looking through the listings, they aren't seeing these bargains.
Me, I'm searching for a "Powel" or a "Hanes" flute that way. I just gave my old one to my wife's niece who needed something better than the crummy Bundy she had.
A Hanes flute - that's pretty funny. Actually when I was in college marching band, we would celebrate Halloween by dressing up with costumes. My squad dressed up as the Fruit of the Loom guys. I was the "green grapes" ;-). We won the Best Squad Costume prize that day!
My sister is the real flute pro, BTW. I think she owns both a Powell and a Haynes.