But that’s a rather long way to get a new bike, and the old one is ruined. Ouch.
Different airline: A friend flew United, internationally, and his bike arrived the day he was due to leave for home. I mean, they DID get it there, but he had over a week with a rental bike. (Nice Untied) It arrived perfectly, of course, no delays on the return. And no idea from them where it was all that time.
Good point. Always always always have an AirTag in the bag or on the bike.
Multiple flights with southwest, never had an issue. Always use my hard shell bikealan case. It’s big, don’t mind the reasonable charge to have my bike with me and well protected.
Traveled with my bike once so far, I had no problems on my flight out but on my way home it was left behind. Definitely invest in an airtag, I knew right away that it was left behind. Southwest took care of it and had it back to me the following day delivered directly to my house.
I have a friend who shipped his bike in a soft case. Upon unpacking his bike it turned out that it had been tossed upside down and the seat post had been wedged into the frame, with a little elbow grease he was able to get it out (no long harm done). Besides that, I haven’t heard many horror stories.
I have been surprised to hear that Southwest is so easy to fly with bikes. I haven’t tried with Delta as it’s the closest airline to me, but I had heard they dropped their prices some years back. I ended up driving to a ride with my main bike pre-pandemic to avoid the hassle/cost and only had a slightly warped disc on the way back; still 2 days in the car each way. sigh
I have been looking for a thread like this!!!
Has anyone used the Thule roundtrip MTB on southwest? Curious because it looks quite a bit heavier. I have both the EVOC travel bag pro and Thule in a shopping cart and cannot pull the trigger. I have a trip to Sedona (on Southwest) in April and need to make the purchase this week.
They won’t turn you away, just depends if they hit you for the oversize bag + the weight to get to $125. I can deal with that, just don’t want to show up at the baggage check the morning of and be in a bad situation.
Mike
their policy is confusing. the first statement is clear: “The items listed below will be accepted as checked baggage for a $75 each-way charge. … Bicycles (defined as non-motorized and having a single seat) properly packed in a bicycle box or hard case from 51 to 100 pounds in weight or 63 to 80 inches in total dimensions.”
HOWEVER within that bullet point: “Bicycles over 100 pounds in weight and /or 80 inches in total dimensions cannot be checked as baggage and can only be shipped as Cargo if the Customer is a Known Shipper.”
These are logically contradictory statements. The customer could argue using the first one, but the agent could highlight the “/or” part and say if your bike box is over 80inches (THEY ALL ARE) then they can’t check it. I hate it.
I have a Thule hard case too. Check the baggage weight limits. The last time I flew Southwest to Tucson, Southwest charged me an additional fee on top of the oversized bag fee because my bike box was overweight. I have always packed my cycling clothing and gear, and tools needed to reassemble my bike, in nylon bags inside my bike box. I ended up paying an additional $150. I wasn’t able to repack in the airport.
I’ve flown with my bike twice (departure and return). The first time it was $75 flat. The second time the agent tried to add an overweight bag fee for being over 50 pounds on top of the bike fee, but their manager corrected them.
Def check the airlines bike policy on line before departure and know what it is. Not Southwest but on a number of occasions a gate agent didn’t know the bike policy and I had to request to speak to a manager or wind up paying fees for oversize/overweight that didn’t apply to bikes.
Out of curiosity I just read their bike policy on the website. I don’t necessarily like it, and there are a few caveats, but it looks pretty straightforward. There are two pages on the site that apply. Here they are in order:
Agreed with what you say about southwests policy. I just measured a couple of my smaller bike boxes/cases, and they are all over 80” L+w+h. Based on their policy it would be impossible to ship a bike due to its size.
In general, it is a good idea to look at the policies of each airline, because the agents are quite likely not to know it, or even be able to find it easily. It’s often faster just to charge for it, vs actually look it up or ask a manager (who may or may not know themselves).
Even at my own airline, I carry copies of the policies (the internal policies, not just what’s on the website) because so many of them get it wrong and want to charge me fees that they shouldn’t. Usually my (friendly) confidence in my knowledge of the policy is enough to have them back off, but I keep screenshots on my phone and am happy to show them.
Still doesn’t help with the Southwest issue where the policy (total dimensions) is just wrong.
Edited to add…..my airlines policy on dimensions is that it’s considered oversized if it’s over 115” L+w+h, which is reasonable.
I’ll make a plug for Alaska Airlines. They are very pro-bike. I’ve flown with them w/ bike a number of times. I’m lucky in that I was able to do all direct flights, even if it meant a bit of driving at the end. Alaska just treated the bike box as another piece of luggage.
Any bike issues I had were really TSA issues – the worst being they didn’t know how to re-assemble my Thule hard case and duct taped it (!!!) back together. Seeing the rough & tumble baggage goes through I’m very pro hard case.
Alaska has always been very good about the travel. I once encountered a newer attendant, who wanted to route me to another line, apparently needing extra … something. After a few moments, another attendant came up and asked what I was doing. I explained, we went back to the first attendant, who then politely got educated and they quickly got me checked in and away I went!
Replying to my own reply lol.
I would advise against.. flew a handful of times with zero issues then the last time I tried I came up on a worker who was very serious about the rulebook, measured the box a few times and said it was too big, even called over her manager who confirmed and would not allow me to fly with it. I had to leave it behind, luckily I drove myself to the airport and was able to put back in my truck.
My biggest pet peeve about it was every time it was just left up in the air for the employees own interpretation. I totally understand I should have been more diligent with their rules but really didn’t think twice since I had no prior issues and the worst part was when I went back to check my luggage in a different worker said she would have checked my bike in and complained her co-worker was just a stickler about rules.
Moving forward I’ll choose a different airline to fly with, Southwest is definitely not bike friendly.
I have flown at least 15 times on Southwest with my bikes. I’ve used the soft EVOC case, Scicon, another full hard case, and one of the cases with my fixed gear for a fixie crit that is below the size restrictions for oversized bags (can’t remember the name). They have never once lost my bag and it’s been at my destination at the oversize baggage pickup every time.
They charged me the $75 fee every single time. They ALWAYS ask me what’s in the bag, and by my understanding, are required to charge the fee if it’s a bicycle, even if it’s under the oversize bag measurements.
American, on the other hand, gave almost zero fucks and didn’t charge me anything on my international trips with them.
OK. It seems to boil down to 80" being an unreasonable limitation rather than anything being contradictory or complicated, right? I agree that’s tight. I just measured an old hard case I used to use when traveling with a road bike by air and it’s 40x24x10 = 78" so just under the limit. Since, I’ve used padded soft cases for road and mtb and I don’t have the dims on those as I’d have to pack up a bike and measure it. I’m pretty sure they’d exceed the 80" limitation. Of course that’s the published policy. What you might or might not get past the gate agent is another matter.
Well, I’m amazed you found a case those dimensions. 24” in one dimension? Considering a 700C wheel is 28-29” with a tire, how’d that work? Or were they 650b rims without tires, or something even smaller? Typically just for 2 wheels it would have to be a minimum of 30” in both width and height, but that wouldn’t fit a frame.
I was thinking the same thing - maybe it’s a kids bike case 
