Flying China Airlines with a bike NOT in a box???

Has anyone ever "wheeled" their bike onto a China Airlines flight. My girlfriend and I are cycling around Vietnam now and ditched our cardboard bike boxes in Hanoi. We've flying out of Saigon and want to deflate the tires and turn the handlebars to get our bikes home. We did this once with Air Canada from Cuba and it worked fine.

Anyone had similar experience on China Airlines? We'd like to do this rather than wrap it in a tarp, etc.

Thanks for your thughts.

Drew

I flew China Southern with an unboxed bike. They charged me an overweight fee. Generally I've found its only flying around the Americas, Europe and Australia that airlines make you box the bike.

Qantas (an Australian airline) will fly to Saigon, so they should have an airline counter there. If you're stressed, they sell bike boxes (huge ones, you should only need to take one pedal off -- if you take both off it tends to flop around a bit, it's that wide) - I got one at Suvarnabhumi for 500 baht, about US$12. They weigh a few kilos though, so if you're worried about that you'd prob best try to board with it unboxed. But in my experience with Chinese airlines, the passengers tend to take on enormous amounts of hand luggage so I'm sure you could get away with taking most of the weight on as carry-on.

I flew with China Airlines from Manila to Taipei with no bike box this summer; no problem. The usual take off the pedals, deflate the tires, etc... as you said.
The only predictable thing with China Airlines however, is their being inconsistent. If you phone them to ask, they might just say no, so better to just show up. You can always get the mega-box from Qantas if they insist.
Andy