Remember that video that did the rounds a couple of months ago showing baggage handlers unceremoniously dumping bike boxes and bags from the hold of an easyJet flight? In case you missed it, here it is.
Hey @easyJet – seriously not cool for your baggage handlers to be dropping thousands of pounds worth of bikes like that! pic.twitter.com/YNlJCNzmn2
— Andy Thornley (@scouser_andy) March 6, 2017
The footage was shot by journalist Andy Thornley as he waited to board a flight at London Gatwick, with the baggage handlers involved employed by Menzies, the company the airline uses for baggage handling at the airport.
@pdjohnson Hi. We have taken this up with our ground handling agent, as we expect our agents to treat our customers’ luggage with care. BR V
— easyJet (@easyJet) March 9, 2017
It was enough to make anyone who flies with their bike cringe, and now one professional cyclist has vowed never to travel with the airline again after his bike was destroyed when he took a flight with the same airline.
> road.cc’s guide on: How to fly with your bike
Peter Koning, who rides for the Irish UCI Professional Continental team Aqua Blue, tweeted a picture today of the frame of his Ridley bike, broken beyond repair.
Here is my team bike after @easyJet destroyed it. Now they are refusing to help me! #dontflyeasyjet pic.twitter.com/5geShgpf9S
— Peter Koning (@nl_peterkoning) May 15, 2017
The 26-year-old Dutch rider competed in the Four Days of Dunkirk last week, and is due to race at the Tour of Norway, which starts on Wednesday.
His tweet drew this response from Cornish ex-pro Tom Southam, Koning’s former sports director at Drapac.
@brenton_jones @nl_peterkoning @easyJet It’ll buff out.
— tom southam (@tomsoutham) May 15, 2017
That wasn’t the only tongue-in-cheek reply.
@nl_peterkoning @TourDeJose @easyJet Maybe they think they did you a favour? It does fit better in the bag that way
— thisdell (@thisdell) May 15, 2017
@nl_peterkoning @TourDeJose @easyJet You didn’t want a folding bike?
— uniltelligible (@chefesque) May 15, 2017
However, this Twitter user wasn’t alone in suggesting that a hard case might be safer than a soft bag in future.
@nl_peterkoning @tomstaniford @easyJet That’s rubbish.
I wouldn’t fly with a soft bag though, hard case only.
— Ste (@me_ste) May 15, 2017
29 thoughts on “Pro cyclist tweets picture of bike destroyed by baggage handlers”
Not really the best advert
Not really the best advert for Scicon bags either!
Rapha Nadal wrote:
This is my Scicon aerocomfort 2.0 (with red wheels) sticking out of pile of bags. Your bike bag is treated by airport staff just as any other bag. Not for nothing baggage handlers are called “throwers”.
I bought this bag because it is easy to pack. You do not need to disassemble handlebars as in other bags. Downside is that shifters are exposed to external forces. 3 out of 3 times my shifters were bent. It is good idea to loosen shifters, so that they are bent without force.
From now on. Hard case only.
Is this really an Easyjet
Is this really an Easyjet issue? Or a Menzies issue?
Jharrison5 wrote:
When you book a flight who is your contract with?
Yes the ground crew broke the bike, or at least that is what i am assuming, but it is easyjet that is responsible they were paid to transport rider and bike from a to b. That menzies f***ed up, isn’t the customers issue that is for Easyjet to discuss with Menzies.
Having had similar happen to a bike of mine, they will just quote some piece of legalise that bascally says not our problem and get lost.
mrmo wrote:
When you book a flight who is your contract with?
Yes the ground crew broke the bike, or at least that is what i am assuming, but it is easyjet that is responsible they were paid to transport rider and bike from a to b. That menzies f***ed up, isn’t the customers issue that is for Easyjet to discuss with Menzies.
Having had similar happen to a bike of mine, they will just quote some piece of legalise that bascally says not our problem and get lost. — Jharrison5
The few times i have had a transit transfer in Gatwick i noticed that all scandinavian airlines requires a hardshell suitcase when accepting a bike.
Marco Polo in vencie requires a softshell/cardboard to accept a bike.
None of the German (dusseldorf, munich, berlin), Spanish (barcelona, grenada, bilbao, tenerife sud, santa cruz de la palma), Italian (bologna, florence, neapels, lamecia therme), Swiss (geneva, zurich), French (nice, montpellier, paeis orly, lyon, auriliac) airports requires any kind of casing.
Scandinavian airports also accepst unbagged bikes. Ipreferd the unbagged solution as the airport personal can actualy see/touch whatch whats in their hands and tends to be ore carfull.
mrmo wrote:
When you book a flight who is your contract with?
Yes the ground crew broke the bike, or at least that is what i am assuming, but it is easyjet that is responsible they were paid to transport rider and bike from a to b. That menzies f***ed up, isn’t the customers issue that is for Easyjet to discuss with Menzies.
Having had similar happen to a bike of mine, they will just quote some piece of legalise that bascally says not our problem and get lost. — Jharrison5
Absolutely! You can outsource the work, but you can’t outsource the responsibility. Companies sometimes conveniently forget this.
Norwegian seems to have their
Norwegian seems to have their own ground crew, at least in Barcelona.
So far my bike has survived in an Evoc bag.
I try to avoid Ryanair, Vueling and easyJet.
Softbag… not what i would
Softbag… not what i would put a carbon bike in.
That beeing said if i can avoid it i travel without bikebag: pedals off, detach handlebar (wrap to frame with ducktape/strips), seatpost down, chain off, rear-derailure off.
But i have a non-butted TI frames and alost nver fly with my carbon wheels (and if i do, i rent a flightcase from airshells.com)
Only damages from +40 flights:
1 bend (replaceable) ti-geardrop that a local bikeshop in Bologna managed to straighten out.
1 dinged campy v-profile alu rim (still dead straght but braking is kind of funny – just found an identical Campy Seoul rim so i can rebuild that front wheel).
reippuert wrote:
Even hard cases get destroyed. I had a B&W one and it had holes in it after travelling from London to Paris on the Eurostar last August.
I’ve spoken with people who said they saw handlers stacking softbags then putting a fasten cord over then and wrenching it tight.
If you employ monkeys, they’re going to throw shit around at their tea party!
Get a Buxum bike box,
Get a Buxum bike box, properly built to withstand almost the worst abuse baggage handlers can throw at them. But there is logic to using something as simple as the CTC clear plastic bike bag. But not for a carbon frame.
Can’t figure out how the
Can’t figure out how the frame got so damaged if the wheels are fine… given that they sit either side of the frame when packed. No pics of the wheels? Can’t help but think there is something not quite right with this story.
Stop blaming the victim –
Stop blaming the victim – those tossers (pun intended) should be the first to be replaced by robots. Then they’ll bitch and moan and strike and cry and plead and sh!t themselves……..
It looks like one of those
It looks like one of those puzzles where you had to untangle two paper clips
It looks a bit like a carbon
It looks a bit like a carbon fibre Brompton now.
That’s got to be more than
That’s got to be more than transit damage, that looks like it’s been run over by a truck! And where are the wheels?? Sounds like I’m not alone in suspecting there’s more to this story than simply “baggage handlers”. It’s also a good reason to never use a Scicon bag.
Anyway, it’s not EasyJet, it’s the baggage handlers and given that the airport employs them, refusing to ever fly EasyJet again isn’t the ansswer cos it’ll be the same people moving the same suitcases along the same conveyor belts no matter who you’re flying with!
crazy-legs wrote:
I use Scicon – with a Ti bike frame. What kind of pressure must have been applied to destroy the carbon frame and cause it to seperate in this way? The breaks are positioned between the padded wheel bags on either side. He either travelled without wheels (odd); they’re destroyed too (let’s see them); or there is indeed more to this story.
Regardless, assuming the frame went in to the bag in pone piece, the carrier must accept responsibility.
Like it or not, international
Like it or not, international freight does involve some bumps and knocks. That’s why goods are shipped in corrugated steel shipping containers and not soft bags.
Packing valuable cargo in a soft bag is a gamble – unless baggage handlers know that a bag contains fragile contents, they will assume it contains what might be expected to be in such a bag – clothes. That may result in them throwing a few solid cases on top. I don’t see any markings on the bag in the picture that indicate that’s it’s contents are fragile, or that it contains a bike.
And even if a bag is marked fragile – that won’t save it from the powerful motorised pushers and grabbers in an airport conveyor system.
Even a cardboard box offers more protection that one of those soft bike bags.
Sure, technically it’s the airline’s fault if something goes wrong, and you’ll get a bit of cash, but you’re the one stuck without a bike on a cycling holiday.
listerine wrote:
Shipping containers are used for uniformity of packing as well as overall structural integrity – in the same way a removals company will use boxes of unit size rather than any old thing, which is a nightmare to pack into a van.
Large soft bags/sports equipment are pretty conspicuous as being different to suitcases and holdalls – and are normal dropped off at a specific large baggage counter. Its not exactly much of a leap of imagination to think they need to be handled carefully. For that matter, simply chucking suitcases around shouldnt be the norm either.
Looking at where the downtube
Looking at where the downtube snapped, that took a LOT of force, so something mechanical did it rather than a human. End-on pressure on the bag could leave the wheels unscathed if it was crushed between two things more than 700mm apart
With apologies to those who
With apologies to those who find this too commercial for a forum, but I think it’s very relevant and when posted before in relation to airline bike damage we get a big response, but whis is precisely why we take our riders’ bikes and bags from the UK down to lovely places like the Alps, Pyrenees, and Mont Ventoux by road for them. We fervently believe that bikes don’t fly!
Have a look at the little film at http://www.lavieenvelo.com/cycle…/file/getting_there.php
Flying your bike used to be
Flying your bike used to be free or very cheap.
Then airlines cottoned on to the fact they could rape you for up to £100 return for it.
So Ok fine, rape me, but for Christ’s sake for £100, treat my bike with some respect.
I too have filmed baggage handlers in France dropping suitcases and my bike bag from about 4 metres.
I used to use EVOC, had some damage, now use BikeBoxAlan, but with these clowns, nothing is safe 100%.
And yes it’s the airline that bears the responsibility; I have no control over who they use to handle.
So pursue them every time until they get the message.
The answer is to use a hard
The answer is to use a hard plastic bicycle box, especially for fragile stuff like that obviously brittle/expensive carbon-fibre frame. Soft bags are probably only sensible for carrying a bicycle and carriage where you can keep an eye on it. Anything long distance should probably be put in a tough wood crate.
1/ One would think this bike
1/ One would think this bike has been damaged on one of the automatic carousels.
2/ Owner needs to fill out Damaged Baggage Claim Form if not completed at airport.
3/ Travel Insurance may cover this loss. Probably not.
4/ Airlines do operate a special system of insurance when flying with expensive items of baggage.
Earlier in the year I was
Earlier in the year I was working at Gatwick fixing the conveyor belts and what I saw was an eye-opener
Official geezers would trundle up in a cart and then pull out a massive set of keys and what seemed to be indiscrimantely, pick any case and open it, rummage around and then close it. Only for it to spring open further down the line and reveal its contents to whomever fancied what was on offer.
I’ve seen Louis Vuitton bags slide off baggage carts at speed and land on the tarmac, with the driver sauntering off into the distance totally oblivious.
You need a five year checkable work history to work at Gatwick, but I’ve met many whom are definitely not from this country, can’t even speak English and don’t give a shit about ANY luggage.
They are constantly advertising for staff wanted at the airport for minimum wage, so what do you expect?
A buddy of mine was travelling to Ireland and had a brand-new pair of Levis nicked from his bag and several small computer components.
If you’re stupid enough to leave or carry valuables in your bag; then more fool you.
Sustransoftie wrote:
Trouble is, they are talking about extending the laptop ban to European flights (it’s only a matter of time). For my work we have to take high-end laptops to the States for events we do plus various networking accesories (routers etc). This normally goes in hand luggage, christ knows what we’ll do if the ban comes in.
I landed yesterday from
I landed yesterday from Mallorca at Luton airport having flown with Monarch. I use a Buxumbox, which is a hard aluminium case. On arrival it has a massive dent in the corner, far beyond the anticipated and perhaps reasonable level of scuff and scrape you’d expect.
The problem I’ve found is the more you try to protect your bike the less care you actually get, a metal box seems to incite some sort of inner destruction instinct as it appears to be unbreakable.
The worst thing is reporting the damage. I went to the baggage desk and was told ‘it’s just a dent so we’re not liable’ with the guy stating ‘the box has done its job’ combined with an attitude that proved he couldn’t give a toss about your belongings.
They’ve also managed to scrape one of the wheels so badly that it no longer rolls, something else they’ve claimed is not eligible for a claim.
Additionally, when I was waiting for oversize baggage to arrive a group of 5 lads accompanied by a member of staff came into the hall clutching new shoe boxes, all wearing brand new high viz jackets. It was quite clear they are agency baggage handlers and being shown the ropes on their first day.
Fact is when you try your best to protect your belongings the people out the back appear to show a level of contempt that borders on criminal damage. The force my bike box has absorbed is pretty scary and all you get is some disinterested numpty fob you off that the level of damage is perfectly acceptable ‘as its done its job’.
It can no longer do its job as the crease is so bad the side panels have distorted so I now face a battle to get it repaired.
I often wonder if the best thing you can do is not use a box at all, that way they are forced to take care with your bike and can’t lob it around. I’m quite prepared to file the claim with the county court if they keep insisting the damage is ok, utterly fed up with the attitudes we’re all familiar with.
this is precisely why i’m
this is precisely why i’m driving mates to do RAID alpine and not flying easyjet, though i did say eurostar and SNCF would be the optimum in terms of cost (£140 return plus £40 for bike on Eurostar only), bike security, journey time and by far most comfortable journey.
Last time I took my bike to
Last time I took my bike to Switzerland it arrived but I’ve never seen the wheels since. I reckon they went to Turkey or somewhere.
I worked at Gatwick Airport
I worked at Gatwick Airport as a baggage handler for a year. They don’t hate cyclists, they hate extra, heavy work. The airport has a new multi-million-pound state of the art baggage handling system for standard bags (only) so that lifting is at a minimum. Makes it quick and easier. Try lifting 20Kg + bags all day for 8 to 12 hours for 5 or 6 days a week! But anything oversized becomes an annoying pain in the neck and is treated as such and with contempt. There is a hardcore of guys who have done it for years and don’t give a shit about anything other than avoiding work and going home. Don’t get me wrong there are some guys do care if a bag falls off the conveyor belt or it is miss-sorted and they try to get it on the correct plane but most of the time it is all such a rush that they are just constantly struggling to keep up. So the big bulky items get annoying. The first time I saw how they treated bikes I was horrified. I questioned why they would stack (throw) four 20kg bags on top of a layer of bike bags he said “Those F^ckers are going on holiday and I’m not, so F^ck ’em!” Use a bike box every single time! When you are trained as a baggage handler you are told that anyone packing their bag should throw their suitcase down the stairs to see if it is packed properly and their suitcase is strong enough. Bike Box. Bike Box. Bike Box.