Originally Posted by
jdon
I actually do very little airline flying with my bike. I do fly a corporate jet and while it has plenty of baggage space, I don't like tying too much of it up with my own gear. The bike is a 56cm so not overly large. The hassle factor of disassembly/assembly though may be an influencing factor.
Depending on your needs/goals, it might still have value. One factor in my decision, apart from the couple of flights a year I would like to take a bike on, is general portability locally, or local-ish. Meet my wife for dinner somewhere, and odds are good that I have my bike and she has her car. No bike rack for the car, so then we go our separate ways and meet back at home. Couplers mean that I can fit the bike into her hatchback without much fuss. No need for complete disassembly, just split and fold so that everything can fit. If you have access to baggage space, but don't want to hog it, the couplers may still help lower the footprint of your bike.
But, yes, like Yan says, you have to take a number of commercial flights before it actually pays off. Of course that's assuming that getting couplers is a financial decision. For me it was financial and convenience. Break down and build up will have its challenges, I'm sure, but I was already doing that with my folding bike. I'm expecting/hoping for an easier time of it with the coupler bike. Not that there aren't folding bikes that pack and unpack fairly well, but mine is not one of those.