Airline Baggage Regulation for Bikes

Because we'll take our own bikes with us for our trip, we'll need to transport them also with us on our flights. But airline companies seem to change their rules for bikes at every moment and with every person you talk to. The current ailine baggage regulations for bikes are listed here. Because we'll fly with USAirways and Alaska Airlines, we'll need to transport our bixes in big boxes. These big boxes are not easy to handle because of their size, but it seems to be regulation (Normally we would use padded bike bags which are much easier to handle). Though we'll leave the boxes at Prudhoe Bay, which will save us weight (because the bags we would take with us the complete trip).