Recent experiences with Emirates and Air Asia

[alexf]

We just flew back from Chongqing with our bicycles. Air Asia has a great bicycle policy, you prebuy the bicycle allowance, and follow the instructions here.
We did not dismantle our bicycles, they were shipped whole with the handlebars turned, wrapped in insulation foam. There was some trouble getting them through the oversized xray machine but at least people in Chongqing didn't care about putting their hands in the machine to get the bikes through.

We decided to try our luck with Emirates in Bangkok, with the whole bicycles, noting that the Emirates website no longer says anything about packaging bicycles. Well, it was no problem, the person checking us in even took a lot of trouble to tag the bicycles securely. There didn't seem to be any problem with retrieving them in Sydney either.

[scirocco]

Did Emirates put any packaging or protective stuff on the bikes (or did you?) Or did they just wheel them onto the plane "as is"?