I am headed to AK Moose & Caribou hunting this fall (1017) for a DIY traditional bowhunt. My advice is to plan in detail way a head of time...Hunting in AK is expensive and the cost jumps significantly if you harvest game and especially if you have not done your homework on getting meat out of bush and back home. If you are just starting it can all seem extremely complicated, which plays into the package deal hunt options and doing a guided hunt, but the more you dig and learn through forums like this clarity will come.
There are big advantages to flying directly into the bush form Fairbanks and Anchorage vs. from a remote village. Normally there are limited flights into remote villages and very strict weight limits. Getting meat out of the bush back to where you will fly and/or ship meat home from can be complicated and expensive if you do not know what you need to do and when in advance.
My hunt involves flying into Anchorage, then to a remote village and then into the bush. My bush pilot flight cost includes getting meat from the bush to the remote village; I am responsible from that point. I plan to backhaul my meat using NAC to Anchorage...but NAC only fly to this village 2 days a week so that involves really thinking through when your hunt ends, the last day you can shoot game to get it out so you can coordinate getting meat out without messing up your flights. The max weight I can fly from the remote village to Anchorage is 100# and I believe this includes carry on. I am flying Penn Air but Alaska Air and Penn Air many times share flights so go to their websites and learn their rules!
As has been shared by another on this thread, I will ship the majority of my gear (USPS priority) to the bush pilot in the remote village so I know it is there and I do not have to worry about lost luggage or weight restrictions; this leaves me some flexibility to take some meat with me home while waiting for the rest to arrive. I will also ship my gear home after the hunt so I will have everything to do this prepared in advance as was outlined. If you are going to a remote village, you need to make sure everything you need is there for you, which may mean shipping it there yourself. I will have a Sat phone so if I do get game I can immediately begin the process of getting it out of the bush and then back to Anchorage.
Hunting AK has become so commercialized it is difficult to find pilots who will fly you based on flight hours; those that do are highly prized and kept top secret...as someone noted. So, what most hunter are faced with is basically package deals like you see through those options listed earlier in this thread...40 Mile Air, Willow, etc. X number of days at X price at X place. I have looked at and talked to most all of them and decided to go in a different direction but it took a ton of digging to get to what I am doing this fall. Good luck.