"To remove the bag from the journey is to change the journey"
The New York Times
The Problem
"[Luggage] doesn't only create a stressful, frustrating experience for passengers, but it also costs airports and airlines dearly." International Airport Review. (2018).
Travel infrastructure
The travel industry has seen significant growth in its volume of passengers for both domestic and international trips. Unfortunately, legacy infrastructure and a lack of innovation has resulted in luggage handling bottlenecks increasing frustration and costs for both the organisations and the traveller.
"Baggage handling continues to be one of the main challenges airports face in their pursuit of an easy streamlined business model." - AirportTechnology.com
User Experience
Overall, travellers find their luggage an inconvenience when travelling. Prices of checked-in luggage on flights have risen, and the idea of storing and dragging 23-40kgs of your belongings across a country, continent or planet is exhausting, stressful and time consuming.
"I find travelling an uneasy experience, bringing luggage only adds to the overall complexity of travelling for me, one more factor that could go wrong."
Current scenario
Unlocking Value
Innovation has the ability to unlock value
Combining the latest technology with innovative services
Like any other disruptive technology, it will take time for Case to become mainstream. But the economic forces will inevitably unlock its value. This product and service will naturally attract users because of its added convenience, competitive pricing and better performance against competitors.
Why will Case succeed economically
Case will leverage the existing network of freight and courier delivery. It will require limited new infrastructure investment. With the exponential growth of e-commerce and home delivery, it is expected that these services will only get better, cheaper and more reliable. This is an inevitable trends and Case will benefit from this.
At the same time, Case will unlock huge potential saving for the transportation and travel industry. Airports and airlines are spending billions in check-in services and luggage handling infrastructure. By separating the luggage from the traveler, the airline industry will be able to reduce significantly the time spent travelling in airports. It will also be possible to reallocate a large portion of these spaces currently dedicated to luggage handling to the passenger. This basically means that the product and service has the potential to increase the capacity of existing airports, thereby generating huge saving for the airport operators, airlines and the community as a whole.
Similarly, in trains, the space allocated to luggage can be redeployed to travellers, increasing profitability and convenience. The same logic is true for other modes of transportation.
Case will also benefit from a long term “network expansion” effect. The cost for early adopters is initially expected to be higher than for those travelling with luggage. Case will be positioned as a premium service, highlighting the convenience and the innovation. But overtime, as the number of adopters increase, the cost of transportation will decrease drastically. We expect that at some point, given the economic forces at play, it will be cheaper to have your case travelling separately that to travel with it.
These changes will take time. There will certainly be a lot of resistance because the investments made by the incumbent operators are significant and the Case will be a threat to their profitability, but ultimately, the combination of traveler convenience and economic benefit means that the best technology will ultimately win.
Assumption on cost of service
Cost of production of Case: £53
Lifespan of the case: 80 trips
Average cost of delivery aligned with Express Delivery services : average EUR 30 for 500k trips
Early adopters will be ready to pay for the service for the added convenience on top of existing travel cost.
But for the service to expand to is full potential, it is expected that the cost of the case is neutralized by a proportional reduction of the cost of travel (cheaper travel cost without suitcase). This can be achieved in several different ways:
B->C
Actual reduction of the travel cost and the traveller pays separately for the cost of the Case services
B-B
Cost of the Case service included in the travel ticket. The transportation companies manage the transition.
Given the innovation embedded in the Case and the potential for significant economic impact on the travel industry, we expect strategic investors (Like: Uber, Airbus, Lyft, Eurostar, Cathay Pacitic etc…) to take interest in the idea and to make strategic investment to kick start the service.
Branding
A clear and easily interpreted brand name was needed that could communicate the proposal in a straightforward and familiar way.
It was decided that "CASE" was the most appropriate name for this project. As the product itself is simply a 'Case' for travelling. Its simplicity also evokes a sense of standard in its proposal "I’m going to book a case" ensuring that the design of the case may be universally understood and familiar.
Case also stands for a secondary meaning of "a case for the future of travel" which lends itself well to the conceptual nature of the proposal, whilst also highlighting its futuristic and grounded idea.
Inspiration was also taken from existing travel companies adopting simplistic language for effective marketing. Booking.com is an example of this. For this reason, a website domain was also purchased (case.travel) to clearly communicate the concept proposal.
