I didn't really want to put this into my Malta trip RR as I feel it would sully it in a way.
This trip was the first time I had brought a bike on a plane. I deliberated beforehand as to the mode of bike transportation... the choice seemed to be between a padded bag or the CTC style clear polythene sack. There are various pros and cons for each. Padded bags are huge (my storage space is limited), and fairly costly for an item that I am unlikely to use often. The protection they offer is not that great, and the fact that it is large, awkward to handle, and not obviously containing something fragile might predispose it to rough treatment. The CTC bags are cheap, and take up no space. You can stash it somewhere on your tour (or even take it with you as you ride). The big argument in favour of these bags is that the handler can see that the bag contains a bike, and he or she will therefore treat it with appropriate care, humans being naturally inclined to treat bicycles with respect.
There is, I'm afraid, a little flaw in the latter argument.
On arrival back at Heathrow from Malta, I stood up to get my bag out as it had been put in a locker quite a way from where I had been seated. I was expecting the rear doors of the plane to be used and wanted to get my carry on bag prior to the rush for the door. The rear door wasn't used, so I was standing for quite some time. My gaze wandered out to the miserable rain-drenched tarmac. Oh, there's one of those little baggage trains. Already. And there's an empty "carriage". A flash of plastic whizzes by, horizontally, and crashes into the back of said container at great speed. Just as this was dawning on me that this object was in fact my bicycle, another large item gets slung sideways onto it. And another. And another. Hmmm. That'll be TT's, Valiant's, and Greg's bikes then. The way they were thrown was just, I don't know how to describe it, they were treated with utter contempt. I don't think I have felt so frustrated in ages as I was then, having to watch a bike I had kept in pretty much mint condition for 6 years treated that way, and being unable to move or do anything about it. There was a little space, maybe 18" or so, left above the bikes into which the handlers tried to jam more cases in while all 4 bikes were lying sideways on top of each other.
Inevitably there was damage: significant damage to my front fork in my case, which will require replacement. But more important than the financial end of it, for me, is the frustration at being unable to prevent some arsehole from damaging your property for the sake of the few extra seconds it would take to stack them vertically or to deal with them in some other way.
Instructive episode for me.