Day 1 (November 3)

First day of the trip. Even though my flight wasn’t scheduled to leave Anchorage until 1:30 pm, I left home at 9:00 am and headed to the airport. I figured it was probably a good idea to get there with plenty of time to spare, just in case any difficulties popped up. And it’s a good thing I did. The agent at the counter didn’t know what the baggage rules were for bikes, so she had to look up the info on the Alaska Airlines website. Everything was fine. Alaska would accept it – no charge. The real problem started when she checked Cathay Pacific’s baggage rules. She told me that my bike box could not weigh more than 66 pounds or have total dimensions greater than 88 inches. The box was 69 pounds and 103 inches.

She told me that I wouldn’t be able to take the bike on my two Cathay Pacific flights (Los Angeles to Hong Kong and Hong Kong to Perth). I pointed out to her that she was looking at the rules for standard baggage, and that she needed to look at the section on Cathay’s website about sports equipment (I had thoroughly researched all of this beforehand, and I knew bikes were allowed). She checked it out and confirmed that Cathay would indeed take the bike box. The next issue was how much Cathay would charge for it. I informed her that I was in First Class on Cathay and that there shouldn’t be any charge. But it still took a 30-minute phone call to Cathay (28 minutes of it on hold) for her to officially ascertain that there was no charge. So, all’s well. The first hurdle has been cleared. The bike is on the planes (I hope!).

Anchorage International Airport – a (cargo) plane spotters dream

Everything else went according to plan. Today I’m flying from Anchorage to Seattle and then on to Los Angeles for a four hour layover till my Hong Kong flight departs at 1:00 am on the 4th.

Posted by Scott