Bill’s Tips For Flying With Your Tandem

Jan and I have checked tandems onto over 200 flights. In 25 years we’ve never missed a flight or left a bike behind. Additionally, we’ve coached thousands of customers who have flown to Santana’s events. Here’s what we’ve learned:

1. Don’t phone the airline.

Airline phone operators will only scare you by reciting luggage limitations dictated by their smallest planes.

 

2. Book the right flights.

Because the largest tandem cases won’t fit in smallest airliners, the size of your tandem case dictates your choice of flights. Even the largest tandem case or box easily fits with-in the luggage bays found on all airplanes large enough for 5-across seating. A smaller tandem case from BikePro USA or Crate Works allows you to choose flights utilizing planes with 4-across seating. Unless you have a tandem that stows in a suitcase-sized container, avoid flights on planes with 3-across seating.  Jan and I research our flights on Orbitz.com, a web-site where seating charts reveal everything you need to know.

 

3. Don’t phone the airline.

Even if you obtain some sort of reassurance (and you won’t), the check-in agent at the airport is free to ignore it.

 

4. Pack smart.

Although airline agents never bother to measure a suitcase, all checked luggage must be weighed and counted. Unless it causes you to exceed the limitation of one or two free checked items per ticketed passenger, keep your suitcases below the 50-pound limit that triggers a $25–$50 nuisance fee. When a normal suitcase exceeds 70 pounds, that fee becomes astronomical. While bike cases and sporting equipment can exceed the 70-pound limit on most airlines (and is often cheaper than checking an overweight suitcase), items over 100 pounds won’t be accepted.

 

5. Do you need to worry about a 70-pound (32kg) limit?

Although suitcases could formerly weigh up to 100 pounds, unions and insurers are forcing this limitation down to 70 pounds (32 kilograms). While most airlines still allow checked “sporting equipment” (including bicycles) to weigh as much as 99 pounds, a very few carriers (notably British Air and Continental) have implemented policies that will force everything over 70 pounds to be shipped as cargo UNLESS you are checking in for a flight that includes a segment on another carrier, in which case British Air will always “match” the less restrictive policy of the other airline. As if that wasn’t strange enough, London’s Gatwick and Heathrow airports are trying to stem injury claims of their luggage handlers by not allowing “sporting equipment” over 70 pounds to be checked at those two airports UNLESS it cannot be “broken down” AND 24 hours notice is provided. (Checked baggage transiting through these airports is unaffected).

 Most tandem owners will easily avoid the still-rare 70-pound rule by packing items such as pedals, seats and posts in another case. If your tandem case needs to exceed 70 pounds, check the “sporting equipment” rules on the airline’s website. While I would not worry about a weight limitation specific to bicycles, a published ban on all sporting equipment over 70 pounds would cause me to choose a different airline.

 

6. Don’t phone the airline.

If enough people bother airlines with questions about tandems, they’ll write new rules that make tandem travel tougher.

 

7. Check-in super early.

Our most important tip is to show up a full hour earlier than requested. This means arriving at the check-in counter 2-3 hours before your flight. Because airlines and their employees are graded for getting planes dispatched “ON SCHEDULE,” showing up late (especially with luggage that can’t go through the conveyor) may cause check-in agents to find a way to delay you or your bike until the following flight---which may not leave until the next day. More than one tardy passenger has been instructed to drag their bike to a distant airfreight counter.

 

8. Don’t phone the airline.

If they tell you “no” and attach a memo to your reservation, the agent at the counter will feel obliged to turn you away. Can’t you phone anonymously? When you call their toll-free number, computers at the other end of the airline’s phone will often identify you, and display your file to the agent. If any airline employee decides to tag you as a “troublesome” passenger, you can anticipate years of problems.

 

9. Be charming.

Since the check-in agent can ignore existing rules (or make up new ones), why not SMILE and be the nicest customer they’ve encountered all week? I always go through the entire ID, frequent flier, and seat assignment pleasantries BEFORE baggage is ever mentioned.

 

10. Why cause a scene?

When flying to tandem rallies and tours (4-6 annually for the past decade), Jan and I often take 3 or 4 full-sized tandems PLUS 5 or 6 suitcases. While we almost always pay some extra fees, it’s usually less than the published tariff. But after an agent explains their calculation (I always ask nicely), I simply pull out the credit card. And if I thought the charge was too high (which has not yet happened), I’d simply argue it later via the credit card company. Getting angry or causing a scene at the counter—never a good strategy—would be especially ill advised with today’s heightened security.

 

11. Employ a willing ally

When curbside help is available, Jan and I always flash some cash while trying to check our bags and tandem(s) with a porter. On the way back from our Hawaii tour in ’08 a $60 tip caused a porter to shepherd our four boxed tandems plus four overweight suitcases through the TSA and agricultural-inspection lines before running my credit card to a remote counter to process an $80 fee for excess baggage. While most porters won’t be this accommodating, even when they only go so far as to escort you inside to the counter, I’ve learned that counter agents seem to provide preferential treatment to passengers who have tipped porters.

 

12. Will I pay an oversize fee when checking a SafeCase?

Many decades ago someone came up with an archaic 62-inch rule. Although this dimension still appears in writing, most airline employees don’t know it exists. Because it takes too much time to find a measuring tape, wrestle with cases, write down numbers and add them longhand, airline counter agents are instead instructed to visually check bulky items against the limit lines that appear on and behind their scales. These easy-to-interpret marks allow agents to instantly spot an “oversize” item that might jam the luggage conveyor. Because the Airliner SafeCase was designed to fit through airport conveyors (and TSA’s scanners), as long as you remove the wheels before lifting it onto the scale, by the everyday definition of the word a SafeCase is NOT oversize. Unless you inform them that your SafeCase holds a bicycle (if asked, my answer is “bicycle parts”), the usual cost for checking a SafeCase is the same as any standard suitcase