Flying with your tandem

Tuesday 30 October 2018
Updated: Monday 1 April 2024
Filed in: General

The following is a brief guide to flying with your tandem.

The following is our own personal experience of travelling with a tandem, as well as those of many of our customers.

In Europe and when flying long haul big planes are used and taking your tandem with you is fairly straightforward. Every airline publishes it's baggage policy clearly on their website, it's important that you read their terms of carriage and adhere to their regulations. They will stipulate size, weight and how they require it packaged, you will need to book it on as a bicycle.

We have flown BA, Virgin Atlantic, KLM, American Airlines, Swiss Air, Lufthansa, Jet2, Easy Jet & Ryan Air with our tandem all with no problem whatsoever. Jet2 is our local airline and we have flown on very many occasions with them, they require the tandem boxed, and from a size point of view a full size tandem packed with it's wheels out is within their regulations.

When we package a tandem for our customers to fly with it, we remove the mudguards, wheels, pannier racks and pedals. These items are carefully wrapped and then placed in the card board box with the tandem. Each tube is protected with bubble wrap or pipe lagging, and the saddles are dropped down and handlebars removed, the front handlebars are then wrapped and placed alongside the tandem. The rear derailleur is removed then we place something between the rear drop outs to make sure they cannot get crushed, this might be a piece of wood cut to size for example

We make sure any part of the tandem that touches another component in the box is well wrapped so they cannot scratch against each other.

If the prospect of having to tinker with your tandem fills you with horror, then the above is not for you.

Airlines will not allow you to carry the batteries used on electric bikes, so if you want to fly with an electric tandem then you'll have to buy or hire a battery at your destination, but check with the airline that they will accept your electric tandem even without the battery, some of them state no electric bikes permitted, whereas as some others just say no batteries.

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