Smart Luggage Ban Takes Effect In January 2018

Smart Luggage Ban

The 2017-2018 holiday travel season has been particularly eventful, and not in a way that travelers would have hoped. A fire shut down the Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson Airport (the world’s busiest) for multiple days, and a so-called “winter hurricane” wreaked havoc along the air routes of the U.S. eastern seaboard.

The hardship will continue for tens of thousands of travelers beginning January 15, 2018, when several of the largest U.S. domestic carriers will begin rejecting so-called “smart luggage” or “smart baggage” unless such bags contain removable batteries. Travelers using smart luggage with batteries that cannot be removed will face the unwelcome choice of abandoning their bag or missing their flight.

Why the Smart Luggage Ban Was Issued

Many “smart baggage” manufacturers foresaw potential travel restrictions and designed their bags to contain removable batteries. Unfortunately, some bag manufacturers did not anticipate such restrictions and failed to incorporate the ability to remove the battery into their design. Travelers of these bags will have spent in excess of $500 per bag for an item that simply cannot be used for its primary purpose: air travel.

To make matters worse, some of these bag manufacturers fraudulently marketed their smart bags as “FAA-compliant” when this was simply not the case. In its public statement, Delta Airlines went out of its way to draw attention to and warn consumers of the falsity of these marketing statements. If you are the owner of smart luggage, we encourage you to research whether or not your bag is on the “banned list” before departing for the airport.

Contact Slack Davis Sanger

If you paid for a piece of “smart baggage” or “smart luggage” and are frustrated that you’re unable to use it for air travel, please contact us for a free consultation.