I just flew me and my bike to Maui on Delta last month. I had read about the change of the bike fee to $), and Delta is my preferred carrier. I have the Delta AmEx card, and we checked 3 bags, no fees and we got in a fairly early boarding group. (BTW the bike in the case weighed in ad 49.5 lbs, so if 50 was the cutoff, i just made it. in contrast, in May i flew me and my bike to Italy, and it was $150 there and something like 160 Euros back...
I have 2 over all comments:
1) TSA SUCKS. on each outbound leg of the 2 trips, they didn't bother trying to close the case properly, coming back from Italy, they didn't open the case at that end, and in ATL, the inspection from international to domestic, was out in the open, and i was able to close it properly. Likewise on the return from Maui... they let me close the case so it would be correct.
2) I used to live in DFW, and i flew AA a lot. they have sucked for years. i try very hard no to fly that particular airline. if the seat get any smaller, only munchkins will be able to fly, and there doesn't seem to be so much demand that that would be their business model. (i avoid United as well, because all of the flights seem to change in Chicago, and ORD is always late getting into or out of).

If i can swing it, i think i may change to a SciCon case where the bike barely gets disassembled, and zips closed to foil the NTB TSA agents. (NTB is old school slang in my family for Not Too Bright)