Standard bike cardboard box is much larger than what you can pack the bike down to with a little further disasembly. Remove the fork. Dismount the rear derraileur from the frame, and tape it out of the way to the frame (no need to break the chain or disconect the cable, just unscrew the allen bolt that conects to the frame), this will protect the deraileur and the drop outs. You might want to pop the cranks off as well for further size reduction and to protect the chain wheel. Put a separator on the front fork (comes with the bike box if you get a box with all the packing pieces inside). Wrap the frame to protect the paint (styrofoam frame wrap pieces also come with new packed bikes). Remove hub skewers and seat post. Tie or tape everything together in the smallest package possible. Place inside the box, and then reduce the box to the size of the package. You will be able to cut down up to a foot of lenth and maybe 6" of height from the box. You have a good chance of not paying airline surcharge (American did nor charge me a month ago), and have a more manouverable package when you arrive with less chance of damage.