Media Release – Wednesday 18 February 2015
A first time entrepreneur from Canberra has devised a solution to streamline travel – The Airpocket. Airpocket is a simple, stylish and protective carry-on to organise all of your travel essentials into one convenient, accessible bag that works with your existing luggage and fits in the seat-back pocket.
“Travel can have its frustrations and Airpocket is designed to deal with some of the most common ones,” said Trish Smith, designer and creator of Airpocket.
“Travellers can leave for the airport with all the things they need for the flight already organised in the Airpocket, breeze through check-in with all documents at their fingertips, go through airport security with everything zipped-up and protected inside, and when they board they can be settled into their seat quickly with no fuss at all.
“And when they leave the plane, checking the seat-back pocket is very easy – just grab your Airpocket and you know you won’t have left anything behind,” Trish continued.
The Airpocket design has been two years and several prototypes in the making, with help from industrial designers and frequent flyers. It is made from neoprene, a soft but sturdy material that cushions and protects valuables against knocks and scratches. Internal, flexible pockets divide the space neatly to hold e-readers, tablets and smartphones with plenty of room for reading glasses, an amenities kit, a pen, passport and wallet – anything that fits into the seat back pocket will fit into the Airpocket.
Trish turned to Kickstarter, a global crowdfunding platform which aims to help bring creative projects to life, to make Airpocket a reality. Through her Kickstarter campaign, Trish hopes to prove the concept and raise the necessary funds she needs to get it off the ground.
The idea for Airpocket came a few years ago. Trish was sitting on a plane bound for Canberra, waiting as the other passengers were boarding. A young woman arrived at her seat and stood in the aisle for a couple of minutes, rummaging around in her carry-on bags pulling out her iPad, magazines, a makeup case, headphones and everything she wanted for the flight. Finally she stashed her bags in the overhead locker and sat down.
“I was watching her and the queue of people waiting to get to their seats and I thought it would be much quicker and easier if she could reach in and pull out all of those things in one go. I immediately pictured a slim, compact sort of pouch with everything inside it and ready to go into the seatback pocket. The name Airpocket came to me almost in the same instant.
“It works with the bags you already have. It’s designed to fit inside a handbag or a satchel, so you can take it on board without it counting as an extra piece of hand luggage. Or you can slip it over the extended handle of your carry on suitcase,” she says.
Trish showed Airpocket to two former international flight crew members and they thought it was fantastic – one of them said that she could see it helping passengers board their flights more efficiently so that planes could be ready for take-off more quickly, which was important at the really busy terminals, like Heathrow, where delays were extremely costly for the airlines.
To receive updates and notice on when the Airpocket Kickstarter campaign launches, sign up at http://signup.airpocket.com.au/ For more information on Airpocket and to find out how you can make a pledge to help launch it, check out www.facebook.com/theAirpocket and keep an eye on Twitter twitter.com/theAirpocket
