Aerocoast Pro Crew I Review

About a year ago I found that the American Tourister City Drift 3-Way Boarding Bag that I had been using as a flight bag was on its last legs, so I started the search for a replacement, which I chronicled in this previous post. After a lot of research I settled on the Aerocoast Pro Crew I flight bag plus the optional water bottle holder that attaches to the side.

I’ve been using this bag since it arrived and with roughly a year’s worth of use I decided that now is a good opportunity to provide a written review of this bag. For those who prefer video reviews I can recommend this excellent video review of the bag by FlyLore737.

Abstract

I think that the Aerocoast Pro Crew I is a good flight bag. I have owned and used the bag, for work, for about a year and have found it to be robust and hardwearing. The bag is spacious and has a good number of pockets and organisational features. My main issue with the bag is that it is a little too large for my use case. Unfortunately some of the Boeing 737 classics and NGs operated by the company for whom I work, have limited space beside the seat which means that it is often a tight fit for the bag and some of the front and side pockets become inaccessible in flight. In addition the bag is too big to be used as a personal item when positioning as a passenger which risks it being gate-checked. This would be an issue given that most of the contents of the bag are not items that I could (laptops, iPads and batteries) or would (cables, headset expensive torches) choose to leave to the whims of airport and airline baggage handling.

Size

The Aerocoast Pro Crew is not a small bag, the external dimensions including the side pockets but excluding the additional water bottle holder are as follows:

• Length: 43cm (17″)
• Width: 23cm (9.5″)
• Height : 30cm (12″)

These dimensions are with the bag empty. Obviously being a soft bag it is possible to load the pockets and for the bag to expand slightly in length and width. I’m a bit of an organisational freak so I love the fact that this bag allows me to organise everything so that I can very easily lay my hands on whatever it is that I need.

This is what I carry as standard with some room left over to add snacks and/or a change of clothes and a liquids bag for easy access at security:

Organisation

One of the reasons that I chose the Aerocoast was the plentiful pockets for organisation.

The main inside pocket of the bag is a single large space with plenty of room for headsets and other large items. Personally I use a smaller headset, the NanoComm GA2 Pilot Headset but there is plenty of room for a standard noise cancelling headset from the likes of Bose, Lightspeed, David Clark etc. There is also one side pocket within this compartment for a laptop. I use this main compartment for my headset, my laptop, cable bag, high-vis jacket and sunglasses along with any snacks or additional items that I may want on an ad-hoc basis.

In the picture above, you can see that the first of the two front pockets can take two iPads. These devices are both a few years old so I believe are slightly smaller than the latest iPads but there is space for them to overlap if necessary. This front pocket also contains an almost full size zip up pocket which can fit a decent quantity of paperwork.

At the rear of the front pocket is another slip pocket which will handle a couple of dozen sheets of paper, or, in my case a clipboard. There is a further front pocket with three pen slots a good size zip-up mesh pocket and a narrower elasticated mesh pocket. I suspect that these mesh pockets are designed to handle a phone and a battery pack and I do in fact use the zip-up pocket for my battery pack although the narrower one serves to hold hand wipes.

On the rear of the bag is a further deep zip-up pocket which is large enough to take several sheets of paper, and a strong pass-through strap to allow the bag to be slid onto the handle of a suitcase.

Looking at the bag from the front there is a pocket on the left which can be unzipped on three sides and opens to reveal three further pen slots on the inside of the opening flap, and a slip pocket which is a excellent size for a passport and pilot’s licence as well as a small notepad.

On the other end of the bag is a large deep zip-up pocket which I use for my pillbox but could be used for glasses and sunglasses or similar slightly chunkier items. Both side pockets have molle webbing on the outside to allow the attachment of accessories. I bought the Aerocoast water bottle holder that attaches in this manner and have found that it is very secure.

The final pocket on the Aerocoast bag is the very useful top pocket. This is a fairly substantial zip-up pocket, with a bright orange interior. Note that this pocket extends into the main inner pocket so takes up some space at the top of the main pocket.

I have found that this pocket comfortably accommodates my varifocals (progressives), in their case, a separate set of half-moon reading glasses also in a case, two small torches, a bulldog clip and my earbuds in their travel case. I have also found that it is very easy to forget to zip-up this pocket and dive into the main pocket inside the bag thereby depositing the entire contents of the top pocket into dark corners of the flight deck. For the curious, the bulldog clip is to hold the tech log open on the correct page and the torches are both from Olight and come highly recommended albeit they are eye-wateringly expensive.

Construction

What can I say about the construction? It appears to be well made, in the year that I have used it I have had no issues. The zips, which I understand are high quality YKK zippers work very well. The stitching is solid, the clips and straps are undamaged and unworn and there is no signs of wear or damage on any of the pockets. The shoulder strap clips and attachment points are mainly plastic and I have found when carrying the bag over my shoulder they sometimes squeak but the occasional squirt of silicone lubricant seems to resolve that particular issue.

The main carrying handle is plastic with a mechanism that allows the two halves to clip together. For a day or two this was slightly disconcerting but it very quickly became second nature and the handle is surprisingly comfortable given that it is plastic and the bag can be heavy.

Drawbacks

As I said right at the beginning of this post, the Aerocoast is not a small bag. This is of course a good thing if, like me, you are not a master of travelling light, but it’s a bad thing when you are trying to squeeze it into an aeroplane.

In our operation the space beside the seat for flight bags is being slowly eroded by the addition of equipment such as the bright orange fire containment bag seen in the picture below. This means, that whilst the Aerocoast does fit it is a squeeze and in some of our aircraft the available space is such that it would be impossible to have a bottle of water in the bottle holder. Incidentally this is a Boeing 737-400.

The other issue with the size is when travelling as a passenger. When I bought this bag I had hoped that I would be able to squeeze it under the seat when I’m positioning which is usually in the back of an A320 or A321. I am fortunate in that so far I have been able to fit the bag in an overhead locker, where it fits comfortably but it is too big to be carried as a personal item and fit underneath the seat which means that it is at risk of being gate-checked.

Summary

In my opinion this is a very good bag, I have absolutely no regrets with buying it and would happily continue to use it until either I retire or the bag gives up the ghost. However, there have recently been some changes to baggage handling in the UK which means that I may no longer be able to get my hold bag through security at some airports where the staff access doesn’t have the facility to check a bag. This means that I am now looking at reconfiguring my travel bags to alleviate this issue and the end result is that I may be retiring this flight bag early in favour of a more modular system. Watch this space for my review of the OnliTRAVEL Trilogy and add your comments and sign up to my blog to get notifications of future reviews.