Australian Cycling Forums - Bicycles Network Australia

Can anybody tell me how much a qantas bike carton weighs? I'm interested in calculating how much stuff it can carry and remain under the 23kg limit.

Not sure, but at a guess around a kilogram.

But it's very difficult to get the weight of a touring bike and luggage under 23kg, no matter how you organise it - even if you load your cabin bag with heavy stuff (and they don't weigh it).

It's really not worth the trouble juggling baggage - Qantas (and Virgin) now allow you to pre-purchase an additional 23kg baggage allowance for $30. This means there is no hassle packing and no risk of being slugged exorbitant excess baggage charges at the airport.

RonK wrote:Not sure, but at a guess around a kilogram.

But it's very difficult to get the weight of a touring bike and luggage under 23kg, no matter how you organise it - even if you load your cabin bag with heavy stuff (and they don't weigh it).

It's really not worth the trouble juggling baggage - Qantas (and Virgin) now allow you to pre-purchase an additional 23kg baggage allowance for $30. This means there is no hassle packing and no risk of being slugged exorbitant excess baggage charges at the airport.

it's not bike and luggage combined. if you've paid for excess baggage/a bike, you get 23kg each for your luggage and the bike box.

mitchy_ wrote:

RonK wrote:Not sure, but at a guess around a kilogram.

But it's very difficult to get the weight of a touring bike and luggage under 23kg, no matter how you organise it - even if you load your cabin bag with heavy stuff (and they don't weigh it).

It's really not worth the trouble juggling baggage - Qantas (and Virgin) now allow you to pre-purchase an additional 23kg baggage allowance for $30. This means there is no hassle packing and no risk of being slugged exorbitant excess baggage charges at the airport.

it's not bike and luggage combined. if you've paid for excess baggage/a bike, you get 23kg each for your luggage and the bike box.

Isn't that what I said (if you buy an extra allowance)?

BTW, buying a bike box does not buy an extra allowance.

RonK wrote:

mitchy_ wrote:

RonK wrote:Not sure, but at a guess around a kilogram.

But it's very difficult to get the weight of a touring bike and luggage under 23kg, no matter how you organise it - even if you load your cabin bag with heavy stuff (and they don't weigh it).

It's really not worth the trouble juggling baggage - Qantas (and Virgin) now allow you to pre-purchase an additional 23kg baggage allowance for $30. This means there is no hassle packing and no risk of being slugged exorbitant excess baggage charges at the airport.

it's not bike and luggage combined. if you've paid for excess baggage/a bike, you get 23kg each for your luggage and the bike box.

Isn't that what I said (if you buy an extra allowance)?

BTW, buying a bike box does not buy an extra allowance.

not quite. a bike box is considered under your normal checked baggage; but if you take luggage and a bike box, you have 2 items. unless you're allowed 2 items to begin with (ie. business), the bike needs to be paid for as excess baggage.

Qantas charge $30 per additional item up to five items. No item can weigh more than 32 kg. What I did last time I flew with my touring bike was paid what was then the $20 charge for an additional item and kept the two boxes below 23 kg each for the outbound flight and for the inbound flight I managed to get under the 32 kg limit at the airport with one box and paid no extra charges.

Andrew

mitchy_ wrote:not quite. a bike box is considered under your normal checked baggage; but if you take luggage and a bike box, you have 2 items. unless you're allowed 2 items to begin with (ie. business), the bike needs to be paid for as excess baggage.

I'm talking about the combined weight of a touring bike and touring luggage - panniers, rack bags, handlebar bags, and their contents, not the number of airline baggage pieces.

The concept of excess baggage is somewhat redundant now. A few years ago it was $10 per kilogram of excess, which could cost a packet if you checked in with overweight baggage. I've been slugged more than $100 in the past (by Jetstar, thanks very much).

Now, the option is to buy an extra piece in advance for $30, or at the check in desk for $40 - either way that gives you a full extra allowance which at the old excess baggage rate would have cost more than $200.

The bike box usually weighs 2-3 kg's.

Sounds a lot, which it is, but I usually take a knife to it and get rid of 700g of excess cardboard..

I usually tie a rope to the bike now and have a bit hanging out where the little handles are. That way the bike supports the box.
If they use the handles they inevitably rip.

Yes, the Qantas boxes are quite large and solid cardboard, weighing close to 3kgs.

I'd like to see the rule that says a box must be used. Thirty years back we always rolled our bikes in with just the handlebars turned and pedals reversed/removed. There was no concern about damage. The box was introduced mainly to prevent damage/marking to other luggage, mainly from people who had really dirty chains. A simple bag wil provide the protection against marking luggage and weigh a lot less. We flew to Italy and back with Ground Effect Body Bags. One recommended technique used in Europe is the CTC Polyethylene bag - easily packed and carried on your tour; clear, allowing baggage handlers to recognise it as a bike that needs to stand up; and cheap enough to replace each tour.

RonK wrote:

mitchy_ wrote:not quite. a bike box is considered under your normal checked baggage; but if you take luggage and a bike box, you have 2 items. unless you're allowed 2 items to begin with (ie. business), the bike needs to be paid for as excess baggage.

I'm talking about the combined weight of a touring bike and touring luggage - panniers, rack bags, handlebar bags, and their contents, not the number of airline baggage pieces.

The concept of excess baggage is somewhat redundant now. A few years ago it was $10 per kilogram of excess, which could cost a packet if you checked in with overweight baggage. I've been slugged more than $100 in the past (by Jetstar, thanks very much).

Now, the option is to buy an extra piece in advance for $30, or at the check in desk for $40 - either way that gives you a full extra allowance which at the old excess baggage rate would have cost more than $200.

oh right, sorry. thought you were talking about luggage in general.

Thanks for the info. So if I budget for around 3kg for the box I should be able to carry around 20kg inside it. That's great. I may be able to get away with just one pannier as checked luggage.

Has anyone had experience of taping/glad wrapping two panniers together and checking them as a single bag?

petermccallum wrote:Thanks for the info. So if I budget for around 3kg for the box I should be able to carry around 20kg inside it. That's great. I may be able to get away with just one pannier as checked luggage.

Has anyone had experience of taping/glad wrapping two panniers together and checking them as a single bag?

Best is to put them in one of those cheap stripey carry bags.

But perhaps you have missed from our previous discussion that if you check in two pieces you'll have to pay for the extra piece, so there is no point scrimping unless you can fit everything in the bike box and carry on bag.

You may get away with tying panniers together as carry on luggage.

RonK wrote:

petermccallum wrote:Thanks for the info. So if I budget for around 3kg for the box I should be able to carry around 20kg inside it. That's great. I may be able to get away with just one pannier as checked luggage.

Has anyone had experience of taping/glad wrapping two panniers together and checking them as a single bag?

Best is to put them in one of those cheap stripey carry bags.

But perhaps you have missed from our previous discussion that if you check in two pieces you'll have to pay for the extra piece, so there is no point scrimping unless you can fit everything in the bike box and carry on bag.

You may get away with tying panniers together as carry on luggage.

You could put the panniers in a wheel box and claim it as part of the bike?
Last time I took a cycling team to New Zealand we found a loophole in the regulations. We took wheel boxes with our bikes and put a lot of stuff in them. The rule said that a bicycle can be transported in 2 separate boxes ( a bike box and a wheel box) and still classified as 1 bike box. In Sydney and Auckland they tried to charge us excess and we had to show them the rule on their own website using our phones.
This was the rule. Air New Zealand site.
Sporting equipment

Sporting equipment is defined as a bag or piece of equipment obviously dedicated to the pursuit of sporting activity.

Sports bags can contain multiple items as long as they remain within the stated weight and dimension limits, e.g. two surfboards can be taken in a single bag. A single sporting item that is required to be packed as more than one piece to enable that item to be carried counts as one piece e.g. a bicycle with a wheel packed separately is considered one piece.
Unfortunately I cant find any such loophole on the Qantas site, but it may be worth enquiring...

RonK wrote:

petermccallum wrote:Thanks for the info. So if I budget for around 3kg for the box I should be able to carry around 20kg inside it. That's great. I may be able to get away with just one pannier as checked luggage.

Has anyone had experience of taping/glad wrapping two panniers together and checking them as a single bag?

Best is to put them in one of those cheap stripey carry bags.

But perhaps you have missed from our previous discussion that if you check in two pieces you'll have to pay for the extra piece, so there is no point scrimping unless you can fit everything in the bike box and carry on bag.

You may get away with tying panniers together as carry on luggage.

It's a while ago now but I have previously tied two panniers together with two occy straps and checked them in. The striped '$2-shop bags' are better. Two panniers together will not go on easily as carry-on baggage - they will fall outside the dimensions I'd expect.

Why bother scrimping so much when for a $20 charge you can pre-book an extra piece of luggage?

I have just flown on QANTAS with my bike in a QANTAS box. This is what I did with my packing. The box (3.7kg) had bike (16kg) + 1 rear pannier containing some disassembled bike parts, front racks, water bottles and tyre pump(3kg) + packaging(.5kg). Carry on luggage was the handle bar bag(1.5kg) and 1 rear pannier(7kg). I used an ocky strap to tie the front panniers together and placed them in a large blue, white and red stripped bag that has been referred to earlier in this thread together with the tent and other bulky items(20kg). I warped the bag with duct tape to ensure handlers didn't rip these flimsy bags.
With QANTAS in economy you are entitled to 1 piece of checked in luggage. So all I needed to do was buy another piece at $30.

Pretty much what we did travelling on Emirates to Europe. Our bikes are a bit heavier so we had to prune the normal load a bit. We'd been able to keep it rigorously to Emirates checked baggage weight of 30kgs plus carry-on bags. We each took one rear pannier on board with us (weight ~7kgs). I don't think we could pay for an extra bag, and international excess baggage is prohibitively expensive.

Beware of weights BTW. In Melbourne our weight was all OK. On return from Rome we were stunned to be told that our baggage was 8kgs over! Equals 350 Euro in excess, nearly $500. That is quite a lot of extra - more than the weight in the carry-on pannier I took aboard with me. We had to re-organise bags and still it was about 5kgs over. This was going to cost us over 220 Euro in excess still so not at all happy. Finally the supervisor there who had been watching our efforts told the clerk to charge us for just 2kgs - 90 Euro.

Later back home, when analysing what extras we had brought back that was not in the bags when we flew out it all added up to barely 1.5kgs (we had ditched a lot of needless items back in Rome). There is no way we had 8kgs extra. I reckon there are Melbourne kgs and Roman kgs. Beware, and a good luggage scales would be a valuable thing. We used one before we flew out, but did not take it with us.

il padrone wrote:.

Later back home, when analysing what extras we had brought back that was not in the bags when we flew out it all added up to barely 1.5kgs (we had ditched a lot of needless items back in Rome). There is no way we had 8kgs extra. I reckon there are Melbourne kgs and Roman kgs. Beware, and a good luggage scales would be a valuable thing. We used one before we flew out, but did not take it with us.

We had a similar issue when flying from Sydney to Lindeman Island. Bags well underweight going from Sydney, but somehow on the way back the bags were mysteriously 8kg overweight and facing a baggage surcharge. Since there was nothing available fir purchase on the is jabs except for clothes, and my wife and I had bought one lightweight jacket each (which we were wearing!), there was in fact zero difference in the contents of the bags. I reckon it is a scam the airlines run, but it makes we wonder how on earth they do correct weight & balance loading the aircraft if their scales are so bad. Maybe they reweigh them behind the scenes once the passenger is out of view.

We refused to pay the excess on the basis that we still had the tags from the inbound flight with the luggage weight shown, and they knew we had been on an isolated island.

queequeg wrote:We had a similar issue when flying from Sydney to Lindeman Island. Bags well underweight going from Sydney, but somehow on the way back the bags were mysteriously 8kg overweight and facing a baggage surcharge.

In Australia if they are charging for weight .. then the weight machines have to be 'calibrated' ... complaints to the 'National Measurement Institute' may yield some results? http://www.measurement.gov.au/Publicati ... rement.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Who knows...perhaps they just had their foot on the scales to up the weight!

Thanks again.

I have two pieces of checked luggage booked for a flight this Friday, ie a bike and panniers. Having disassembled the long haul trucker and placed it in the box, I found that it weighs about 20kg according to my bathroom scales. I can probably put all my clothes and other light gear in a pannier and put that in the box or carry it on. I don't think I'll have too much of a problem.

BTW the Qantas bike box weighs 5kg.

petermccallum wrote:Thanks again.

I have two pieces of checked luggage booked for a flight this Friday, ie a bike and panniers. Having disassembled the long haul trucker and placed it in the box, I found that it weighs about 20kg according to my bathroom scales. I can probably put all my clothes and other light gear in a pannier and put that in the box or carry it on. I don't think I'll have too much of a problem.

BTW the Qantas bike box weighs 5kg.

If you have two pieces of checked luggage booked, you can take 46kg, not including your cabin bag.

petermccallum wrote:
Has anyone had experience of taping/glad wrapping two panniers together and checking them as a single bag?

We usually put one rear pannier into the other rear one then the two front ones inside as well, and take it as carry-on (minus the hangers). That alone weighs a bit. The handlebar one can be deemed a purse/man bag.