Aer Travel Sling 2 X-Pac: One Year Later

Ever since I got my first bag from Aer back in 2016, which was the Aer Duffelpack – an interesting mix between a duffel and a backpack – I was drawn to the brand because of its quality of materials and manufacturing, its sleek design language and the fact that it was – and until recently still has been – one of the few companies that was able to make sharp looking forms without compromising on function. Even though the San Francisco-based brand is only a decade old, it made a name for itself with its minimalist yet functional and urban-friendly designs.

So far all bags that I owned – except check-in luggage and one backpack – have been Aer products. Additionally, I also own smaller Aer items like packing cubes.

The Aer Travel Sling 2 X-Pac has an undeniable techwear vibe: Sleek, minimalist, matte black with that crisscrossed fabric texture. It’s the type of bag you can sport no matter whether you’re wearing a Zegna business suit or a more unconventional Demobaza outfit – or pretty much anything in between.

The X-Pac material – a high-tech laminate fabric that’s water- and tear-resistant – adds a premium yet modern touch to the otherwise relatively inconspicuous Cordura fabric that Aer is using for regular models. In theory, the X-Pac is also more lightweight than other materials, but more on that in a bit.

The zippers are in typical Aer fashion thick, water-resistant, and high-quality YKK zippers. The plastic hardware is Duraflex and the bag features Aer’s signature high-visibility orange interior with a padded laptop pocket and multiple compartments.

Long story short, on paper the 12 liters Travel Sling 2 X-Pac is a solid option for everyone looking for a bag that’s less bulky than a regular 20+ liters backpack, yet can fit more than a regular ~6 liters sling. In reality, however, the Aer unfortunately is sort of a mixed bag.

Starting with the previously mentioned weight advantages of the X-Pac material: There are none. Both, the regular (Cordura) variant, as well as the X-Pac version have an empty weight of approximately 800g/1.8lbs, which is largely due to the internal structure and the padding. The X-Pac material is not able to compensate for the amount of material that is used in the internal compartments.

This is relatively heavy for a bag of such a size. For comparison, a Mountain Laurel Exodus 55L (frameless) backpack weighs 510g/1.12lbs and even the North Face 28L Borealis averages only around 1050g/2lbs while offering more than double the Aer’s capacity.

To put things in perspective, the Travel Sling 2 weighs only 200g/0.4lbs less than the current AMD Ryzen 7000-Series ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED or nearly 100g/0.2lbs more than the 2024 13-inch Apple iPad Pro M4. The weight of the 12L Travel Sling is in fact so noticeable that even when it’s empty I usually double-check every compartment to make sure I haven’t accidentally forgotten a hard drive, tablet, or other hardware in it.

This means that whenever I’m using the sling to carry my laptop, I carry the additional weight of e.g. an iPad with me. These extra pounds wouldn’t be as bad if the Travel Sling wasn’t a sling but an actual backpack. Because the weight cannot be distributed across both shoulders, however, filling it with even the most lightweight items makes it uncomfortable to carry for prolonged periods. To add insult to injury, Aer decided to design the Travel Sling so that it can effectively only be worn on the left shoulder. While it’s possible to carry it tote-bag-style on the right shoulder, it is clearly not designed for that and will slip off relatively fast, especially when wearing smooth materials (e.g. a raincoat, or a windbreaker). The cross-body-wear is only possible on the left shoulder, as there is no way to attach the strap on the opposite corner of the bag.

On multiple occasions, I had my laptop (approx. 1.4kg/3lbs), my keyboard (approx. 800g/1.8lbs), as well as my camera (approx. 800g/1.8lbs) with me in the Aer and found it awfully uncomfortable to carry the sling after only a short time. Whenever I had to add a battery pack (approx. 800g/1.8lbs) and an LTE router (approx. 240g/0.5lbs) for longer trips, the Travel Sling became insufferably painful to lug around.

Putting aside the weight for a moment, the advantage of the Aer Travel Sling 2 X-Pac over a smaller 6L sling is the ability to theoretically store around 12 liters of stuff – double the amount! – according to Aer’s official specifications. While this might be true in theory, it is impractical to do so. The 12 liters must have a very specific shape and size to fit the sling’s wedge-shaped interior.

Laptops, tablets, books, and magazines work perfectly with the Travel Sling 2. However, Aer for example shows one photo of the Travel Sling on their website that contains (foldable) headphones stored in the inner left compartment. In reality, transporting headphones in there won’t work, unless the outer compartment (on the front of the bag) is left empty or the headphones are very low-profile. With regular-shaped headphones – think Sony 1000MX4 or Soundcore Q45 – the bag’s wedge shape will likely continuously push the hardware out of that compartment and the bag will probably even require some squeezing to properly close. Let alone that the compartment is not large enough to fit most folded headphones anyway. You will likely end up carrying the headphones around your neck rather than in the bag.

It’s a similar story with any modern and relatively compact MILC. Due to the wedge shape of the bag that leads to little space at the bottom and most of the space being available at the top, where its zipper closes, you will likely end up storing your camera facing down. With the lens pointing towards the bag’s bottom, and the camera body staying right underneath the zipper, where the bag doesn’t offer cushioning, the bag won’t offer a lot of protection. Even if you decide to take the camera apart every time before packing it, the body is unlikely to fit well into any compartment unless the bag is empty.

Speaking about internal compartments, the Travel Sling has many – too many. There is one particular that constantly gets in the way:

Whenever I try to just shove something into the bag it ends up tangling up on the elastic compartment, which then pushes the item back out of the bag. To use the main compartment, I have to put the bag on a surface, reach in with one hand to move the elastic compartments out of the way, and use my other hand to put in the item. The situation wasn’t as bad when the bag was new, but after a while it seemed like the compartments loosened up, leading to them constantly getting in the way.

Another thing that is beyond my understanding is the sling strap. Apart from the fact that it has apparently been designed with people in mind that usually wear 5XL – which, I guess, is great for them but cumbersome for everyone else, as the sling is way too long for a regular size human being – there’s one big issue with the sling design:

It won’t hold the adjusted length. I had to customize my strap by adding plastic hardware that makes the strap stick to a specific length:

The customization required me to squeeze the strap through the existing plastic hardware, which in turn required me to forcefully bend it open. That is because Aer, unfortunately, doesn’t appear to care much about the repairability of their bags, making it impossible to replace individual plastic hardware.

Yet another thing that Aer doesn’t show on their Travel Sling 2 X-Pac marketing material is the stiffness of the shoulder part of the strap, which leads to it always ending up in the most awkward positions when carrying the Sling in one hand. On the Aer website, you can see the model carrying the Travel Sling 2 with one hand in multiple photos. This is effectively impossible in real life, as the strap would end up going in between your legs while walking, due to its weird stiffness. While storing the Travel Sling 2 underneath the front seat on an airplane, the strap will always end up entangling your feet. It is without exaggeration absurdly annoying to deal with the strap and there’s no way to fix it so it doesn’t dangle around.

The big Duraflex hardware buckle that closes the strap and holds it together is another weak point. Putting aside the fact that it’s too easy to get your skin pinched when closing the buckle, I’ve had multiple situations in which I thought I closed it only to then realize after a while that it wasn’t. If I wouldn’t have noticed it on time, the strap might have opened at some point, which would have ended with the bag crashing down on the ground. Ever since I double- and triple-check the hardware to make sure that it is locked in 100%.

Speaking of straps: The two straps with plastic hardware at the bottom are largely a design choice and serve little to no function. They’re great for attaching other items to the bag – for example, a small umbrella or maybe a Penny board, if you feel like the strain on your left shoulder isn’t enough – but that’s about it. The straps don’t serve an actual compression function and, when tightened, will only worsen the issue with the bag’s wedge-shaped interior.

The bottom line of using the Aer Travel Sling 2 X-Pac heavily for over a year is, that it is more of a design item than it is utilitarian. It has several flaws that require DIY fixes and it gets more in the way than it should. It is too heavy on its own and it lacks important features like the ability to attach the strap on either corner – to be able to carry it on either shoulder – or a way to fix the strap so it won’t dangle around. I won’t travel with it anymore and I feel like Aer should have named this bag the City Sling 2 Max X-Pac or the Tech Sling 2 Max X-Pac, as the Travel wording feels completely off for this item.

While I’m still a fan of Aer bags, I will be more cautious with recommending anything other than their travel backpacks. The Travel Sling 2 left a similarly bitter taste in my mouth like their Carry-On, making me believe that their newer products are more focused on flashy looks rather than functionality.