The Aer Carry-On’s wheels lock with the simple slide of a button that sits right below the trolley handle. “It feels semi-magical,” our luggage expert Kit said. “And I’ve always liked that in a product.” This Aer bag is not the first luggage to have locking wheels (we’ve seen them on Muji suitcases), but the feature is surprisingly uncommon.
Not to ruin the magic, but the locking mechanism, which is hidden under the lining, appears to work a bit like a bike brake to lock the back two wheels, thus stopping the whole suitcase from rolling. I’d be curious to test how durable the mechanism is long-term, as more parts mean more possible breakage points.
Most of the time, the locking mechanism felt more like a satisfying novelty than a necessity, but occasionally it came in quite handy. I used it when the suitcase started rolling downhill in a parking lot. Later, when I was packing up the car, I pushed both the Aer Carry-On and an Away suitcase to one side of the trunk—the Away model rolled back while the Aer bag stayed put.
In addition to the locking wheels, the Aer Carry-On has two other distinctive design details. The first is a hidden slip pocket for a Bluetooth tracker. It’s a useful feature—I usually pop an AirTag into my luggage, but when it’s time to fish the tracker out, I never remember exactly where I put it.
I didn’t even notice the second feature at first: The handles have holes in the sides that you can use to secure your luggage tag. I love this! It’s not a feature that everyone cares about, but I’ve always been perhaps inordinately annoyed by the way a luggage tag hangs awkwardly off a bag handle.
Like many other hard-sided suitcases, this model has an integrated TSA lock, and the trolley handle has four stop heights instead of just two. Aer’s suitcase doesn’t come with a drawstring laundry bag as Away’s does (I use my own anyway), but it does come with a nicer leather luggage tag in comparison with Away’s, with a buckle closure instead of just a slit.
There was one feature I missed: The Aer bag lacks a bottom grab handle. Many hard-sided suitcases don’t have one, but Away added one a few years in, and it’s pretty convenient when you put your luggage in the overhead compartment backward and need to pull it out again.
