With summer travel season right around the corner, and many families, including ours, planning vacations, we wanted to take a moment to talk about the smart luggage ban that came down earlier this year. While it might only affect a few of you, we think it’s important information that you might not have known about.
Related: This new luggage collection helps girls in tech. Awesome!
Effective January 15, 2018, the larger airlines (American, Delta, and Alaska) released guidelines banning luggage with non-removable lithium-ion batteries. Fast forward a few months, and well, other airlines have jumped on the bandwagon as well. Basically, they all agree that a possible fire is not good for anyone. And well, we tend to agree.
For those folks who purchased the suitcases like the ones by Bluesmart that we actually featured here on Cool Mom Tech, that means you cannot use them anymore, unless you remove the battery. And that usually requires a lot of tools.
Unfortunately, this has meant that these smart luggage companies have had to shutter, or create a removable design, since you are permitted to use smart luggage if you can take the battery out of the bag and carry it on with you. Companies like Away, which we’ve also featured, offer that type of smart luggage.
If you purchased Bluesmart smart luggage, you can file a claim to attempt to get a refund for your purchase. And moving forward, be sure that if you’re purchasing a piece of smart luggage, it has a removable battery. We love the idea of not having to search around an airport for a charger, but we also want to actually be able to bring our suitcase on the plane too.
Photo by Francesca Tirico on Unsplash
