Bringing a bicycle on the plane?

Has anyone done this successfully?  DH is coming back on Wednesday afternoon (his flight leaves Chicago that evening I think) and I want him to bring my bike.  I have no clue what he needs to do though!  The airline just says something about boxing it up and bringing it - is there some special box he needs?  I wish I was there to do it myself!     Sometimes DH is like a little kid.  If he gets it here in one piece I will be so grateful!

I haven't done this myself (I'm actually buying myself a new bike this weekend) but have friends who have. I found this online....

"You can ship your bicycle in a cardboard box. You can probably count on an airline at a major airport to be able to sell you bike boxes (US$10 at San Francisco International), but it may take them 30 minutes to find them. Smaller airports might not have them at all.

The best compromise is probably to go to a bicycle shop and get a bicycle box from them. This box will probably fit your bike better, but will require more creative disassembly. When you get the box, also ask them for a fork brace."

It sounds like its pretty inexpensive as well. The hard part is getting it to and from the airport.

my dad managed to ship a big ar*e bike for Jess and for some strange reason it didn't get charged customs but then a small hand held box got a £41 charge! both marked "gift" 

but then my dad sells custom mirrors and gets large boxes all the time. If he's in the states maybe troll around K-mart or garden centres for boxes...doesn't UPS sell boxes as well??