Taking a bike on klm

Anyone taken a bike on klm recently? I’m headed to turin later in the year and in terms of routes I’ve got a 5 to 6 hour drive each way for Gatwick flying ba, a 3.5 hour run to Stansted for Ryanair or much more locally with klm or lufthansa.

Price wise it’s all much of a muchness but obviously I’d rather avoid as much driving as I reasonably can.

Klm would be the preference as its more local and better flights however… Their website gives dimensions for a bike box but they seem a bit small on the width, length and height are plenty but 230mm packed width seems rather small (dims I found for an evoc bag are 390mm width)

Anyone flown a bike with them recently and know if that’s measured/enforced at all?

Cheers

When you take into account going through Schipol or Frankfurt (at a guess for Lufthansa) is there really much of a saving? It also doubles the chances of the bike getting lost/delayed/damaged

4hr Inc transfers vs 2 hrs without, so travel time assuming a clear run to Stansted is about half an hour maybe an hour more, equally I’ve had that same drive take me 7 hours before not 3.5

Ditto Gatwick, travelling there is a pita if its not a clear run & it’s a big slog on the way home. Given the landing time even if it runs well, it’ll cost me a day’s leave really as I’ll not be home until 2am.

Yes, did it last month going to Norway. You have to ring them up, no big deal in itself. Depending on your flight, you may or may not get your bike on board, this is because for some of their short haul flights they use smaller planes with smaller cargo hatches rather than the container and roller system that the big jets use.

For some reason the operator booked bike bags for our outward flights but only “sports” bags for the return, no idea why – were we going to leave the bikes in Norway? Anyway got back to Oslo airport to check in the bags and it’s “We aren’t sure if the bags will fit” So they got one of the baggage handlers to come over with a tape measure and size up our bags then he went away and got the hatch dimensions from the plane! Luckily for us our bags (CRC pro) were 2cm smaller than the door. I’m pretty sure he only measured length and height, with fat bikes in the bags they were a bit wider than 230mm.

Flying from Leeds they’ll go on the roof rack anyway Whitestone.

Sports bags sounds like a better bet as they just have a combined max of 3000mm which would be fine.

We flew LBA to Schipol then on to Oslo. Leeds to Schipol was fine, it was the return Oslo flight that we nearly got caught out on. It’s not the combined max that’s the problem but the length and width. I’d ring them and check otherwise there’s the possibility they’ll send them on another flight.

I did this Cardiff to Schiphol. I couldn’t deal emwith a bike bag when there so I packed it in a frame box on the way there. On the way back I bought a box at the airport for the purpose which was huge, went in with the wheels on!

This doesn’t help you much I’m afraid but just to say the airline is pretty bike friendly.

Bike friendly sounds positive! I’ll try calling them later but my prior dealings tell me it’ll be a long conversation to get nowhere until I book the flight

I’ve taken my bike to Johannesburg then back from Cape Town on KLM and AF three times and never had a problem with the short-haul bit from and to Manchester. This was in a dhb bike case, which looks like a suitcase on steroids.

Good to hear thank you. Just twigged once probably got enough flying blue points to cover the bike too, which is a bonus.

I flew from Edinburgh via Amsterdam to San Francisco with KLM. A baggage handler’s strike at Schiphol meant my bike has to fly out the next day.

The resulting backlog of all the forwarded luggage probably contributed to the damage my bike sustained. Bent chainrings, broken gear hanger even with the mech removed, I certain the hub failure was a consequence too.

The bike was delivered to my door in Point Reyes within a couple of days. The driver had 500 hundred items to deliver that day

That aside, the airline was good, highlight for me were classic reruns of Paris Roubaix and other spring classics on the film menu.

Remember that baggage handlers are employed by the airport (via a third party company usually) and not the airline’s responsibility. So blame airports for smashed bags not airlines.

The bike box purchase at Schipol btw let me achieve one of my life goals: riding directly to the airport to catch a plane with my bike 🙂

Was said box rather more robust than a normal box? 4.5kg sounds like it should be and a bit of Googling suggests I should be able to get a similar box here if needed though I’d have to check it would go in wheels on. And in the car for that matter!

So a drawn out conversation with klm leaves me no wiser. The official answer is no, I can’t take an evoc bag as its too wide.

The unofficial answer is, book it as a maximum width bag and you’ll probably be fine, but they might refuse it at check in.

I could book it as a miscellaneous bulky item but it won’t be covered if its damaged as I’ve lied about the contents…

So, whilst I debate buying another thing to pack it in… Any suggestions on a nice way to get to Gatwick from oop North? I’m not thinking Gatwick express will be great with a bike bag as I don’t fancy Kings Cross to Victoria…