There is supposed to be an international agreement signed in some place like Berne that allows bicycles to be carried for free on international flights. It doesn't apply to internal, domestic flights.

For mine, I will research the baggage policies of airlines on the internet, and providing the passenger fares are competitive and the timetabling is, too, I will opt for the one that offers free carriage of bicycles, or at least the cheapest.

In Australia, I will travel domestically with Virgin Blue because they classify an entire bicycle box up to 32kg as only 6kg of booked luggage, and they have a very helpful page on bike packing on their website.

I will travel with Westjet anywhere I can in North America because they allow a bicycle box up to around 28kg as one piece of booked luggage, and the second piece can be a big suitcase, and their staff are super friendly.

I will travel if I have to with Qantas (and in the absence of another competitive airline) because they allow a bike box for free up to 32kg.

I won't travel with Cathay Pacific again after being slugged around $300 AUD at Charles de Gaulle for the bike box and supposedly being overweight (when there were other passengers loaded up with three monumentally huge and obviously heavy suitcases getting through for nothing).

I won't travel the budget JetStar airline in Australia (or overseas) with a bike unless it's for lightweight weekend randonnee trips because their total baggage limit is 20kg (if you can get the bike box and all touring gear under that, then you can get it on for free... but then your flight might be cancelled suddenly).

As to anyone lying about the contents of luggage when asked a direct question... what else do you lie about? Airline staff aren't stupid, but lying about luggage contents is becoming more and more stupid in this day and age of security checks, especially in North America (note, I have said when asked a direct question -- anyone who is able to break their bike down into a large suitcase, and is *not* asked what are the contents, is perfectly free to stay silent).

My experience in North America in the past two years on exiting Canada and the United States by air is that after the check-in, you *have* to accompany any large box to the security personnel who then put it through the scanners and check with a sniffer device.

Anyone who thinks the security people don't report back to the airline on inappropriately tagged luggage... well, must be silly. In my view, it's only a matter of time before you have some explaining to do to the security people. And I am risk-aversive and don't want my travel delayed for any reason that I can prevent.