Industrial design smackdown update: First airport-security-friendly laptop bag?

Posted by Rob Walker on July 10, 2008
Posted Under: The Designed Life

In the comments to the recent post about bag-makers scrambling to meet TSA guideliness for a product that would spare air travelers from having to take their laptops out when going through security, Bonnie in Richmond points to this item from a company called Aerovation.

Its site says: “We have begun manufacturing and will have inventory in late July or early August.”

The full writeup on the product page is interesting, as it gives a slight peek into the TSA process from a bag-maker’s point of view. Sounds like it was a somewhat imprecise process. Anyway this firm says it has patents pending on what it came up with.

I’ll keep an eye on it, but as noted earlier, I’m also kind of going to be waiting for evidence that the word is out among the actual screeners. I don’t care how compliant the bag is, if they tell you to remove your laptop, you remove it.

Further diversion may be found at MKTG Tumblr, and the Consumed Facebook page.

Reader Comments

No kidding about the screener. A few years ago when removing shoes was “optional” (the signs even said it was optional) I sent a complaint email to the TSA. Reason was that in one airport I went through, the policy was if you don’t take off your shoes, you go to the extra screening queue, where–you guessed it–extra screening required removing your shoes, whereupon they ran them through the xray machine. I pointed out that the sign said it was optional and they said it is, but you get sent to extra screening. The TSA sent a response to the effect that they were sorry, and they try to be consistent in their policies but it does not always happen. Not long after that, they decided we all could take our shoes off every time and they’d give us little plastic footies to wear through the line. I haven’t seen those in a while, nor did I ever see anyone use them.

The upshot being, I would never fork out $ for a bag that would probably not have the intended effect.

#1 
Written By chip on July 10th, 2008 @ 6:27 pm

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