So, I’ve looked on the websites for most of the major long haul carriers and they only give you a luggage allowance of 20 or maybe 30kg of which a bike has to be taken out of. That doesn’t really seem very feasible? There seems to be no option of paying for a bike separately, only extra weight at £megabucks per kilo?

What are people’s experiences of flying long haul (we’re going to New Zealand) with bikes?

Let the shock down or it’ll explode 😉

Indeed!

Firstly, nothing will explode.

Secondly, phone them and ask. Most carriers will charge a fixed rate for bikes, and other sporting equipment, on top of your normal baggage allowance.

I’ve just been looking into this (off to NZ as well). We’re flying with AirNZ, they’ve changed their luggage allowance since we last used them, now you pay half the price of an additional piece of luggage for your first piece of sporting equipment- for us this works out to £17.50 extra each way. Combined with the standard luggage allowance that gives a total of 46kg for bike and luggage- you can split this so that, for example, the bike could weigh up to 30kg, which is the maximum the baggage handlers will accept, and that would leave 16kg for the rest of your belongings. If that makes sense.
Can’t say about other airlines though.

Regarding letting the shock down, on their website AirNZ say that the max nitrogen pressure in your shock that they’ll carry is 200psi- that seems low to me?

Cool, that sounds better, thanks for that Vinnyeh

Depends which way you are going. Via USA its easy, via Asia a right PITA.

Air NZ are very very good, and for internal connecting flights the allowance for the International flights is applied happy happy joy joy.

Now to sort out your chat for the inevitable dumb questions from other people at the airport “whats that in the huge box ?” I generally go with “it’s all my make-up and hair dryers etc”.

Jobbyheid and hair dryer’s made me smile 😆

I took my bike to NZ in 2005. Flew Malaysian airways and they charged me nothing. Might have changed now though.

We’ve flown the tandems all over the world (inc NZ and Oz) within two peoples standard allowance (25kg IIRC) without problem or excess luggage charges.

It’s a bit more difficult if you are taking internal flights on smaller planes. Getting a tandem into the hold of a Dash-8 in Norway was touch and go and if we’d ended up on smaller aircraft it would have been a problem.

We have more problems with trains than planes.