Air Travel with a Bike

Baggage Experience Oct 2010

Following a 19-strong trip to Australia, experience with trans-Tasman travel on Air New Zealand reported earlier is out of date. The other airlines may well have changed too.

Air New Zealand now allows ONE bag of 23kg without extra payment. If you check in another bag you will be charged $25.00 for the second bag which is half of the normal second bag fee. This is because the bike is classified as sports equipment. If the bike is more than 23 kg you will be charged the full amount for the second bag of $50.00. The rules are here. Excess fees are here.

So use the carry-on allowance of 7kg to the max. Your carry-on bag is sometimes weighed and stickered too, but it seems to be accepted that you can carry on a satchel or laptop bag as well. Just remember the the carry-on stuff can't have liquids and gels more than a certain volume, or anything that could be construed as a weapon.

Baggage Experience Jun 2009

Following the even bigger Australia-NZ MTBO win this month (yay!) experiences with baggage limits on the trans-Tasman flights have been updated. The Australian airport was Melbourne.

This is a limited snapshot at 27 Jun 09. The airline websites contain sections on "overweight baggage" or "sporting equipment" which should be consulted. However there are some things they won't say, such as how much discretion you can expect from the checkin staff:-) If you have experience to add, please contribute it.

First, here are some airline links.

Now our traveller experiences. Note the differences between the expected (on the website) and actual limits applied at checkin; and between different flights on the same airline. The approx date of the flight is given so you can tell when this experience fades into irrelevance.

Baggage Experience Nov 2007

Following the victorious Australia-NZ MTBO win November 2007 (yay!) experiences with baggage limits on the trans-Tasman flights has been collected.

This is a limited snapshot at 6 Dec 07. The airline websites contain sections on "overweight baggage" or "sporting equipment" which should be consulted. However there are some things they won't say, such as how much discretion you can expect from the checkin staff:-) If you have experience to add, please contribute it.

First, here are some airline links.

Now our traveller experiences. Note the differences between the expected (on the ticket) and actual limits applied at checkin; and between different flights on the same airline. The approx date of the flight is given so you can tell when this experience fades into irrelevance.

Packing your Bike

For advice on that see the MTBO Resources page.

This page was assembled by and updated as noted.