Luggage Fees

Anybody who has ever taken “unusual” luggage on an airplane knows the terror involved in arriving at the checkin counter. Airlines are always looking for ways to make flying more difficult; they figure that if they can scare all the passengers into staying home, they won't have to pay the pilots and they'll make more money. But if you do fly, you can count on it that the rules for everything will be arbitrary, changed at the whim of the guy sweeping the lobby floor, and (above all) expensive.

So when I decided to take my bicycle to New Zealand, my wife immediately started treating me like I needed a session with a psychiatrist. (Which is odd, because I'm hardly rational under the best of circumstances. But she normally ignores that particular foible.) After a Web search, I discovered the Air Caddy, a remarkable bit of cardboard that I'm pleased to recommend highly. (I also recommend buying the optional wheels; I didn't and regret it.) My only complaint is that it didn't arrive with an expert to put it together; I spent about 95 hours on the project before I finally figured out that tab B actually should go in slot B (who would have thought?).

When the Big Day arrived, we stuffed our twelve bags and the bike box (sideways, which didn't bother it at all) into a shuttle and headed to the airport. When we started unloading, the people behind the V Australia checkin counter started pointing and laughing at the pile we were making—until we headed their way, at which point they ran for the back room rather than have to deal with our pile of stuff. All except one nice lady who took one look at the bike and asked, “Where did you get that box?”

Oh, great. It's not an airline-approved box. Of course not. The airline ones are made of cereal cartons pasted together with Post-It notes, require you to disassemble the bike down to the ball bearings, and offer the baggage handlers seventeen different ways to bend your carbon-fiber frame, smash your aerodynamic wheels, and ruin your expensive derailleur. In fact, they come with how-to-crush instructions printed on the side.

So when she questioned my box, my heart sank. Would she refuse to let it go on the plane? Would she charge me more than the value of my bike? Would she leap over the counter and beat me to death with it? One thing was certain: life was going to be very, very bad.

But no. It turned out that she has a bike of her own and thought my box looked robust. I told her (truthfully) that it had been tested with a 3000-pound load, which impressed her even more than my biceps. Both of 'em. She smiled, went out of her way to charge me less than she could have, and made everything good. She was even cheerful about the other twelve bags, each of which was packed to exactly the legal limit. (My understanding is that if you have an overweight bag, they charge you a substantial fee and then push your stuff out the door when you are somewhere over the Pacific.)

We carefully didn't mention our pockets, which were also packed with heavy things. These days, it takes planning to outsmart an airline.