I've not been burning through the frequent flier miles like I did last year, but I put a couple more trips with the bag in June. The bag is as strong as I first believed.

I love the compression strap setup. Bag works really well when loaded with just one suit and cinches down nicely. When I do that, I only use one compartment for clothes and the compression straps make the other two disappear. It then becomes a tight package pretty similar to a shoulder carried trifold garment bag.

Here's a picture of the bag in the very first overhead bin on a Delta ERJ on a one day trip. I used the external straps to cinch it small enough that it fit in next to a Tumi briefcase. With the straps you can tell if you look closely it was compressed, but there was no floppiness to it. I wasn't embarrassed to carry the bag with me to court the next day.



The bag also works on larger trips and will hold an enormous amount of stuff. Actually, this can be a problem as the bag will swell to bigger than sizer depth if you're not careful how you laid stuff even with the compression straps. I don't know if it is because it a shoulder bag or being six two and 210 pounds makes it look smaller, but the Delta agents never asked me to stick it in the sizer when I did that trip. It got so thick, it was a really tight fit in the 757 overhead bin.



I think that was a bit over 20 pounds worth of stuff in there (I need to be more disciplined in packing). That much weight was a little uncomfortable with the shoulder strap, but not a problem with the backpack straps.

I'm very happy with the purchase. The design improvements I would recommend to the bagwould be the following:

1. The two small exterior pockets and the full width pocket serve the same function and just add thickness to the bag. I'd drop the two small ones and just keep the full width pocket. I'd also make that pocket unzip on the size that would face up when you use it as a backpack so that you could more easily slide out a laptop without having to undo the compression straps when one bagging it. The alternative is to stick the computer in one of the main compartments which already allow you to unzip on the side like that.

2. I'd shave a little bit off the width of each of the main compartments just to help insure it fit the sizers when you aren't disciplined while loading it - even on the haul where I stuffed it to the point where it was dubious on fitting in the 757 there was more room left in the bag.

3. While I haven't had a problem with them, the shoulder strap attachment carabiners still concern me as a long term wear issue.

4. If Briggs & Riley doesn't have a patent protecting it, I'd look at the BDX Duffle solution for how the shoulder straps unfurl where the panel covering them becomes a pad to allow airflow when used as a back pack. The current solution has them slip out of a zip pocket so the entire nylon side of the bag wants to lie flat on your back when it is used as a backpack.