The “Rollaboard-bag” Celebrates It’s 25th Birthday
Categories: Industry News | News
The innovation that revolutionized the traveler’s world had humble beginnings.
Inventor and Northwest Airlines pilot Bob Plath’s eureka moment came as he waited at an airport security checkpoint behind passengers struggling to free their bungee-cord-attached bags from bulky metal luggage trolleys. He headed for his garage workshop, tinkered a bit and returned to the airport with a luggage trolley screwed onto a hard-sided bag.
It was 25 years ago that Plath’s Rollaboard bag changed the orientation of a suitcase from horizontal to vertical with the simple addition of two wheels and an extending handle, bringing relief to legions of travelers. (Seventeen years earlier, luggage executive Bernard Sadow attached four wheels and a pull strap to a bag, creating the first wheeled suitcase, but the design lacked the nimbleness of Plath’s upright wheeled bag.)
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