It's a gamble no matter which route you go. I have a padded travel bag for my ski. I got pipe insulation tubes, fitted them around the edges of the ski, and then used some string to tie them tight. Vest , towels and other soft items then filled the other voids in the bag to give it more padding..
I also wen the route of UPS shipping the ski in its original shipping box back and forth.
I had no problems in either case, but plenty of skis have been damaged by airlines and UPS i would imagine.