I've always felt there's a 50/50 chance surfboards reach their final destination in one piece. I've only traveled with boards once. Now with an SUP board I feel like it's even more likely to be damaged on a flight. Am I worrying too much? Anybody with experience traveling with an SUP board? My board is relatively small, 7'4".

Select to expand quote

eabmoto said..
I've always felt there's a 50/50 chance surfboards reach their final destination in one piece. I've only traveled with boards once. Now with an SUP board I feel like it's even more likely to be damaged on a flight. Am I worrying too much? Anybody with experience traveling with an SUP board? My board is relatively small, 7'4".

Eabmoto I have done several trips with a SUP and I know there are plenty of others on the breeze who have done so too. I have always travelled with Qantas and had now issues with damage or extra charges. The longest board I have travelled with was a 9'1 sunova 'creek' that I took to Hawaii.
Just make sure you have a good quality bag and I wrap the rails in noodles ...

We've traveled Sup's from 8'6 - 10'0 with Qantas, AirAsia, Garuda.
From Melbourne, Alice, Bali, Thailand.
Thick wall travel bags, noodle nose n tail, flatpak bag cloths/towels/wettie and tape them along rails keeping best padding on lower rail under carry handles (bump /drag zone) . No damage to date.
Happy travels ENJOY

Pool noodles are a good tip. Good to hear travel is possible.

Took my Sunova Flow on a short flight. Decent boardbag, noodles, extra foam and cardboard. Towels and wetsuits taped around. Retrieved with a broken balsa rail about 1 foot from the nose, onw inch into the foam. The nose itself was cracked open, from the inside out. Luckily it happened on the flight home.

if I had a board with lower build quality I probably would have received it with half a nose.

What flight carrier ?

Just spoke with a qantas baggage manager and she said they Do not have a length limit on any qantas flights, domestic or international.

I have been on a few trips. I have not experienced damage but other guys on my trips have. The pool noodles are a great idea. I bought a big roll of this stuff (see link below) and made super thick nose and tail protectors, and then cut it into the shape of the board to lay it over the deck and bottom. It comes in 4mm thickness and maybe thicker. Tape does not stick to it very well, but if you wrap it around the sheets and noodles you will hold it all together. Hot glue guns work well.

I have also put the board in a slightly big board cover and then put that into a bigger board cover.

One consideration is the unhappy process of packing it all up for the trip home. Having it inside two bags was very easy.

ebpackaging.com.au/products/400mm-x-100m-1mm-foam-wrap-1