Traveling with Kiosks via Airports

Recently we traveled to pitch a kiosk concept to a very large prospect and the meetings went well. We brought along an IBM AnyPlace kiosk to demonstrate some of our recent custom kiosk applications to the client, which we do often. It gives them an idea of the type of applications they could build, show the level of design quality we can perform, and allows to to touch and feel some actual hardware. The IBM kiosk is retail hardened and can take a lot of abuse and constant interaction. But then we put it up against Delta airlines and the TSA.

After packing it in a foam lined hardshell travel case (TSA locked), we checked the kiosk with our other baggage for our return flight home. All seemed well until we opened the case a week later to prep the kiosk for our next pitch. The kiosk screen was broken! Imagine the shock and then anger. You always wonder how roughly they treat your luggage, and now we have a gauge of the high level of abuse. This glass is not cheap or fragile. It's touch stuff with lots of coatings, etc. (see IBM's specs at: http://www-03.ibm.com/products/retail/products/anyplace/index.html )

As you can see from the picture, it must have taken a hard and heavy blow from a sharp object or corner of another package. But through our hardshell case? That takes some effort. And now that it is a week or more past our return flight, I don't know if we can issue any kind of complaint or claim. I doubt they will cover this, so I am simply down one unit and out a lot of money. My next step is to see what IBM will charge to repair the unit for me. They have great warranty service, but this would not be covered, obviously.

Shipping electronics is always risky business, and passenger airlines are not in the habit of being gentle with the luggage in their care. I'm sure this would be a bit less likely with a carrier such as UPS/FedEx who handle a lot of fragile items daily. An airlines is expecting clothing and golf clubs most of the time. We ship a lot of kiosks via common carrier and rarely have any problems. But we are going to have to re-evaluate how we travel with the kiosks on passenger airlines. We are currently evaluating other types of hard shell cases that we can check with the airlines, and will likely come up with a good solution that we will resell to other customers.

How about you, have you had similar experiences? Do you have mobile kiosks and need to protect them? How do you travel with them?