I think it depends on where in the process it gets inspected and what technology the airport has invested in.

I have been asked to pull the case over to TSA oversized baggage and they run it through an X-ray and that is all the attention the bike receives. I think this is the future, but not the norm. In this process and before I had my hard case, on one occasion they asked me to open up the box infront of them and they swabbed it then gave me some tape and allowed me to pack everything back up.

Most times the case / box gets thrown on the belt with other luggage and then gets inspected behind the scenes.

I would happily show up early and cooperate with TSA vs them tearing through my bike at the last minute...

It’s been a long time since I’ve flown with my bike but I think it was down to Miami from Denver last time and that’s how I remembered it. I took it to the oversize section both times. They opened and looked at it and had me pack it back up.

That said I do have the scicon hard case so it’d be hard to break anything with that one.

Also, people need to stop claiming it’s a certain airline that damages it. Normally it’s who ever the airline hires at that airport. So you could have great handlers at one location and great at another and has basically nothing to do with United or any other airline.

Exactly. I'm sure most would. You'd think they would have had enough dealing with damaged bike claims by now.

Interestingly, the OP on this thread never answered the question of whether it was a hard or soft case. Regardless, flying out of either Tampa or Orlando, the last I see of the case is when I drop it off at the counter. The airlines have staff that take it to the oversize counter for them. However, this summer I made the mistake of transiting through Toronto on my way over to Europe and back. I had to clear customs and recheck luggage both ways. On the outbound flight, the Canadian equivalent of TSA had me pulling virtually everything out and asked again and again what each piece was to where I finally asked her condescendingly if she had ever seen a bicycle in her entire life. Then she spent several minutes closely inspecting the bubble wrap because who knows what explosives that might have held?! But wait, there's more! So now she's looking at the bike stand centerpiece that is part of my Thule Roundtrip Pro XT and wants to run it through the X-ray machine ... where she gets it jammed inside of the machine. Fortunately, I had a decent amount of time before my next flight because it was 20 mins later before she was able to get the part out with the assistance of another person. No my bike, was not damaged, but the sheer incompetence of some of those agents is depressing. By contrast, on the return trip, through Toronto, they had me open it, checked one wheel bag, did the explosive sniff test, and I was out of there in a minute.

I have always asked to watch them send it through the TSA X-ray and make sure it was good. Every time they said that was ok. Basically it goes through their inspection the minute it hits the other side of the wall behind the check in area. Once they give you the thumbs up you know it passed inspection and you saw it all happen.