ouch.
touch wood on all our future plane travels!
I always use a plastic rotor protector on front wheel that I tape on securely, and anchor the front wheel with zip ties in the triangle area. I carry this and rd protector with me, which is easy with panniers, so I don't have to try to source more for flight home.

touch wood some more eh?
was his rim damage front or rear rim?

I think it was a front rim

I feel better now anchoring the front wheel in the center area, as it (hopefully) keeps the hub going against the frame, and those rotor protectors go flat against the inside of the box, again hopefully spreading out impact forces better, less going into the rotor.

still is a bit of a lottery though, we do our packing end as smartly as possible, after its out of our hands.

yeah. I completely removed my rotors ... knock on wood ... I seem to be doing marginally better each time with packing but they really find ways how to screw with your bike. I have no idea what is going on on these cargo flights. I feel that perhaps they may put the case at the bottom and then pile up all other baggage on top of it and when they close the lid they use some kind of motorized compression to put so much pressure on the baggage... just a guess.

Ive told this story before, but flying to portland in 94, i got out of plane, watched out window as dumb as nails baggage handlers take my boxed bike off plane, place it on cart and proceed to pile a giant pile of suitcases on top of my bike, then drive off bouncing down to the unloading area.
clearly didn't give a rats ass about my bike.
don't know how it didn't get damaged.....although it did wobble sometimes on that trip down the west coast ......

Here is the cherry on top: my friend’s bike was in a hardshell case

Santa Maria!
that's quite an achievement on the baggage handlers part!