Flying with panniers

[navrig]

My wife is planning on flying out to somewhere in Europe and meeting me mid cycle tour.  We would have our own mini tour with her returning from the same airport.

She would travel with 2 panniers and a small daysac and we would hire her a bike with a rack locally.  Two panniers will be more than cabin baggage so she will have to check them in.  I am thinking that the best way to travel would be to bind them together with a strap and wrap them both in cling film.

Anyone else done this?

[Matt2matt2002]

Good idea re cling film.
I've seen cling film wrapping folks at airports on my own tours  . Addis Ababa and Colombo, Sri Lanka spring to mind. One thing less to worry about before the flight.
I have always used cheap plastic laundry bags ( Chinese i think) with the 2 panniers tied together inside.
I'll probably use this method in May when I pop over to Thailand for a couple of months.

Nice idea having the missus join you mid tour.
Mrs. Matt doesn't cycle but I'll run that idea past her.
Thanks for the suggestion.

Best

Matt

[John Saxby]

Another option wd be to use a good-quality nikasil duffel bag -- I have a Sea-to-Summit product. That weighs just a few ounces, and packs up very small.

It's still wise to use tape or bungees to hold your panniers together within a duffel.

[WorldTourer]

I fly with panniers at least a couple of times a year, and my solution is the Chinese non-woven plastic bag. You can find these in every country in the world for no more than five euro, so you can use it once and throw away. However, they are typically good for a couple of flights, so during your tour you can just keep it folded up at the bottom of a pannier until you need it again.

[navrig]

Thanks for your replies.  An alternative may be an IKEA bag with the panniers strapped together.  That would be easier for her to bundle up.

[Matt2matt2002]

I fly with panniers at least a couple of times a year, and my solution is the Chinese non-woven plastic bag. You can find these in every country in the world for no more than five euro, so you can use it once and throw away. However, they are typically good for a couple of flights, so during your tour you can just keep it folded up at the bottom of a pannier until you need it again.

Those were the ones I had in mind. The Chinese non woven type. Good choice.

Best

Matt

[mickeg]

My Canada trip, I checked two bags, orange and black ones.  The larger Carradry bag was my carry on bag and the smaller pannier was my personal item.  See photo.  I carefully measured everything first and everything fit the size criteria for the airline I was on.

An alternative is try to find a very lightweight duffle that matches the airline carry on size (airlines are not uniform for carry on sizes), and another bag that perfectly matches the personal item size.  It is possible that all of her stuff could fit in those two bags.

This bag is slightly larger than most airline carry on size criteria, but of you do not pack it full, then you can shove it into a smaller volume if you have to.  Just make sure that it does not have fragile stuff in it, if you are near an Ikea:
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/goersnygg-bag-blue-60499261/

I usually wear my helmet onto the plane, if asked I tell the airline staff that I do not want a baggage handler to crack it, I put it in the overhead once on the plane.  Only once has an airline employee commented, he said that modern planes are pretty safe, and he was smiling when he said that.  I made my comment on baggage handlers, I got no argument back.

If airport security inspects anything she checks, it would have to be something that is easily put back together, if just a strap I would not trust security staff to strap them together well enough. 

I use two luggage tags on anything I check.  Second photo is one of my luggage tags when I got home from my last bike tour.  If she straps two panniers together, put two luggage tags on each pannier.

I have not carried my Ortlieb panniers onto a plane but the Backroller would qualify as a carry on and the Frontroller would meet the personal item size criteria.

[PH]

Flying isn't something I know anything about, I only opened this thread because I was hoping for tales of whizzing down hill fully loaded...
I'm guessing that anywhere that hires bikes with racks is likely to also hire panniers? Might make things a bit easier, though the suggestions you've received seem pretty simple.

[UKTony]

I’ve no experience of this but this is a website of a widely travelled couple. If you go to the link below and scroll down there’s a bit of advice on how to pack up panniers into manageable pieces luggage to meet airline requirements.

https://www.cycletourer.co.uk/cycletouring/planes.shtml

[flocsy]

I know this is an old thread, but one idea that came into my mind is to pack everything into a carton box. You can throw it away, and find a new one for the trip back.

[in4]

Those zippable er woven plastic bags from Sports Direct are good. Choice of sizes so a pair of panniers shouldn’t be a problem.The bag is lightweight and folds up small. Similar bags are sometimes referred to as laundry bags; those blue, red and white ones.

[PH]

Re woven bags - Having worked at East Midlands Airport, I can tell you those woven bags don't always survive the conveyer systems and carousel. I think maybe the looser weave makes them more prone to snagging.  Or it might just be because they're a popular bag I've just noticed more damaged than any other type. Either way, I've just seen enough of them shredded that it would put me off.

[steve216c]

I know this is an old thread, but one idea that came into my mind is to pack everything into a carton box. You can throw it away, and find a new one for the trip back.

Ha! I thought it was just me who did that 😁

Travelling with luggage you don’t want to use more than once. Tip is to take packing or gaffer tape with you and visit a supermarket to claim a free one way pack for the return journey which you can pack in minutes.

With British Airways and Lufthansa between Heathrow to Berlin I often found my cardboard box luggage arrived first on the carousel before any cases due to fragile handling by baggage crew.

[WorldTourer]

I know this is an old thread, but one idea that came into my mind is to pack everything into a carton box.

Airlines don’t always accept cardboard boxes as luggage, or they force you to sign the standard form absolving them of any liability in case of damage.

[navrig]

The solution we adopted was to use one of these:

https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/goersnygg-bag-blue-60499261/

I was travelling by train & ferry to Santander so didn't need to pack everything to start with so the Ikea bag slipped into the narrow compartment in one of my Ortlieb panniers and stayed there until I got to Athens.  I took a roll of narrow gorilla tape although I could have bought some in Athens.

I packed two full panniers and a rack bag (with a handlebar bag inside) into the Ikea bag and wrapped it in gorilla tape to make sure it help together.  It arrived in Edinburgh with no sign of damage.  I now use the Ikea bag as storage for all of our touring luggage.

My wife joined me in Dubrovnik and used the same approach for flying out with panniers.  Unfortunately she left the Ikea bag in one of our accommodations so when flying back we had to buy a new woven bag.  Wrapped in some duct tape it survived with no damage.

It was one of the bags shown in this picture - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Chuckle_Brothers_-_29_August_2013.jpg

It cost about 3Euros.

In both cases when leaving Europe the check-in desk asked suspiciously what the packages were but when we explained it was a bag containing 3 other bags they were happy.