The short answer is, it depends on the airline, but you will more than likely be able to bring your poster tube on the plane. You can typically put the tube (as one of your 2 carry-ons) above in the overhead compartment. The other issue is getting through security with something that resembles a bazooka, and we have heard horror stories about that!
We would never recommend that you check your poster as luggage- it could get crushed or lost. We can ship your poster directly to your hotel, and we do this on about a third of all the posters we print. It works well, the hotel will hold it for you.
Foldable Fabric Poster
All that aside, we recommend printing on our Foldable Fabric poster material. The printing color and quality is great, the same as our paper, and it has the advantage of being able to fold up into a small package which you can then place into your carry on bag.
Goes in your carry on!
Very often that will save you the cost of checking a bag, it allows you to keep your poster with you the whole trip, and you’ll breeze through security. Foldable Fabric posters make travel easy! We’ve had terrific acceptance of our Foldable Fabric posters, for good reason!
Have a question? Feel free to give us a call and one of our professional graphic designers can assist you- 800.590.7850.
For more design tips go here. Like & Review us on Facebook. Review us on Google.
postersession 
I’ve carried on a plastic poster tube for Frontier and United airlines flights. The tube has always gone overhead. I’ve also packed several dozen pushpins in the tube with no trouble.
Frontier Airlines recently changed their policy to now enforce that everything must fit in that box by the gate. While recently travelling to a conference, they called everyone with a poster tube to the gate counter and made us all pay extra to gate check them. This was even if it was our only carry on (I had a small shoulder bag that easily fits under a seat). It seems they’re becoming too restrictive and don’t care about customer service or satisfaction anymore.
Southwest airlines had no issues this week with bringing poster tubes on a plane, as most people bring that as their only main carry on item, and it clearly takes up less space overall, packing on top of luggage.
Try our foldable fabric poster, it fits in your carry on and avoids the hassle and extra bag check fees. http://www.postersession.com/fabric-posters.php