Every time there’s a post on here about Southwest’s ridiculous bike case restrictions, someone replies with a verbatim quote of the “Specialized sports equipment” policy thinking that will solve the issue. Thoughtful, but kind of misses the point.
The actual issue is that 80 inches as a maximum limit for bike travel cases is OBSURD.
The smallest bike shipping box I have ever seen for a standard adult bike is 32x42x12 (86” total). Standard bike travel cases that every other airline seems to be ok with are more like 90-100 inches.
Unfortunately, the Cargo/Known Shipper option mentioned in the policy is not realistic for most normal people because it requires multiple layers of vetting and certification, and it’s prohibitively expensive for recreational bike travel. Southwest customer support gives all kinds of inconsistent answers and advice on all this stuff, so I’m going to attempt to make it simple:
*Whether or not your bike case can fly is 100% dependent on the agent who checks you in.*
Fortunately Southwest generally hires friendly people who actually want to not ruin your day, so customers have more hits than misses relying on this simple truth, but it’s not a guarantee, and that stinks.
All that said, here are some tips to increase your chances of making it through on flight day:
Be kind.
Make sure your case looks clean and legit (no cardboard-scotch-tape hack jobs).
If it says "bicycle" or "bike" in official printing on the outside, that's even better.
Keep it under 50 pounds if you can—this will keep the alarm bells from going off and forcing your agent to look up the specifics of the policy.
Don’t put anything in your case that is not directly related to your bike.
Be kind.
Finally, keep posting about this, and like these posts! At some point Southwest may realize they’ve put a pretty unreasonable restriction in their policy.
Good luck out there!
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