Aer City Pack Pro 2 Review

When one of your favorite brands updates a product you love, you get a little excited. Or at least we do! The Aer City Pack Pro was a great travel companion commuting to work and on flights, but can the Aer City Pack Pro 2 fill the big shoes of its predecessor? That’s what we’re here to find out.

Unlike some product iterations, Aer made several small changes to the travel daypack, which we’ve been carrying daily for the past few weeks. The company says that it took user feedback into account, which we appreciate, making the silhouette sleeker and upgrading the materials and trims for an even more premium feeling bag. We don’t want to tell you the TL;DR (although you could just watch our review video if you really aren’t in the mood), but before we get into all the details, we’ll spoil it here: the changes are overall improvements! Now, on to the nitty gritty.

External Components

If you like Aer’s signature 1680 CORDURA® ballistic nylon exterior on other bags, you’ll be happy to see it remains on the City Pack Pro 2. It’s bluesign®-approved, which is great for sustainability, and as sleek and durable as we like to see on a bag from the San Francisco-based company. We’re rocking our favorite Black colorway, but you can also get it in Navy and Olive (which we also love) at the time of this review, or you can get Black with X-Pac or Ultra material on the exterior and orange and yellow liners, respectively, instead of the gray bluesign®-approved ripstop nylon interior on the CORDURA® bag. Suffice it to say that you’ve got options with this bag, and we’re here for it. X-Pac and Ultra should make for a lighter-weight bag if that matters to you, but we don’t think this 24L bag is too heavy, at 2.9 pounds (1.32 kg) for the ballistic nylon.

Whatever colorway rocks your world, there isn’t a ton of branding to detract from the aesthetics. Similar to previous Aer bags, there’s a Hypalon tab near the bottom of the right-hand side with the Aer name, and that’s about it. The YKK zipper pulls on everything (but the top quick-access pocket) also sport long Hypalon tabs at the end that say “Aer Designs” on one side and “Since 2014” on the other, but that’s some pretty subtle branding.

It’s pretty easy to recognize this as an Aer bag, thanks to the horizontal AquaGuard zipper bisecting the front of the pack; that’s a signature Aer move. The laptop compartment also features an AquaGuard zipper, while the other openings are reverse coils. They’re all pretty easy to use, but we’re happy that Aer includes Hypalon tabs at either end of the front pocket zipper and at the bottom of the bag, where you can use them for the main compartment because they are a bit resistive. The tabs give you something to grab when opening and closing the bag, which comes in handy daily.

One more zipper to mention before we move on: the top quick-access zipper locks into place to keep it from opening further than you wish. We think this is mostly a design choice as it’s not so big of a pocket that you’ll likely open it partway, but we’re here for it. It and the front compartment zippers also end in a zipper garage to further deter moisture from getting in at the end of the zipper track. The other fasteners each have dual pulls, so there isn’t an end, per se, to protect.

The Aer City Pack Pro 2 has three carry handles, a change from the original one, which only had a top carry handle. We missed having a side handle in the move from the Aer City Pack to the Pro, and we’re happy to see it return times two! All three handles are smooth webbing with a lot of cushion, so they’re comfortable if you want to carry the bag that way. Luckily, they’re not too fat to fit on a hook if you like to hang up the travel daypack at the end of the day, making it the best of both worlds.

In front of the handle, on the left side of the bag, is a Duraflex D-ring, a carryover from the prior version. We like its placement above the water bottle pocket because you can use a carabiner to lock your bottle into place so it doesn’t slip out if you lay the bag down. However, there are two bottle pockets (more on that change later) and only one D-ring, so you’ll still want to check the status of your other bottle before disembarking if you use both pockets.

There’s an additional Duraflex D-ring on the right-hand shoulder strap, along with Duraflex adjusters for those straps and the slides on the sternum strap, though the magnetic buckle fastening that strap is from Woojin. Everything works well, though, so we don’t care whose name is stamped on the hardware.

However, let’s talk more about the harness system because there is another noticeable change on the back panel. Don’t worry; there’s still the same cushioned padding covered in mesh for breathability. There’s even still a vertical air channel to let your back breathe as you carry this through New York City in July. However, instead of the luggage pass-through strap running along that channel, it runs horizontally across the center of the bag. This means that you can sit the City Pack Pro 2 vertically on the handle of your rolling carry on luggage instead of sitting it on its side. How you feel about this may vary, but our tester likes the change. We also like that it secures in the middle of the bag with a hook-and-loop fastener so you don’t accidentally catch it on something without meaning to.

The rest of the harness system is similar to the first iteration: the shoulder straps are comfortably padded and lined with breathable mesh; they have good flexibility at the top and don’t squeeze your traps; the sternum strap slides on a webbing strap for micro-adjustability and removability; and there are strap keepers to contain all the excess if you tighten things down.

Fit Notes

Our primary tester finds the updated City Pack Pro 2 comfortable, even when loaded with gear. The harness system padding blunts the feeling of your gear, and we didn’t get the same feeling of pulling back at the top of the bag that we occasionally encountered with the original. However, to ensure you don’t have that issue, we recommend packing the pack as evenly as possible to prevent it from being top-heavy. There are many places for gear, so we don’t think you should have an issue. We also find it more comfortable than the City Pack 2, and we think it’s because the straps on the Pro 2 are further apart and stitched slightly lower on the bag, making it feel slightly less restrictive than the City Pack 2 and the original City Pro.

As for aesthetics, we still love the sleek durability of this Aer bag. Even though it’s a backpack, it doesn’t look out of place with business attire and more professional clothing, yet it also looks fine when full of gear for the gym and a family vacation. Black goes with everything, but Navy and Olive are also pretty neutral. You really can’t go wrong with any of the available options for this bag.

Inside The Pack

Organizational features and design are where you’ll notice the biggest difference between the first and second generations of the bag, so let’s dive in to see what we’re working with here.

We’ll actually begin with the side bottle pockets because having two on the City Pack Pro 2 impacts organization elsewhere. They’re both large enough for various-sized bottles, from a skinny Hydro Flask to wider tumblers, and they’re quite deep to hold tall bottles or a travel umbrella. Elastic at the back holds the gusset in check for smaller bottles and expands to accommodate larger ones. However, having the same pocket on either side means we lose the zipper pocket on one side of the City Pack Pro, which was good for holding small travel essentials and contained a key leash.

Instead, the key leash has moved to the front stash pocket below the horizontal zipper. We have some issues accessing where it’s attached in the middle of the left side, primarily with a stuffed main compartment. The areas share capacity, and it can be hard to reach your hand inside to pull out your keys when carrying a lot of stuff. However, it won’t be an issue if you just want to know where your car and house keys are when you get home from a trip and don’t need to access it daily. There isn’t any other organization, so it’s best to stuff things you might not need all the time but want to have just in case, like a packable jacket or bag.

There is plenty of organization in the top front pocket, though. It opens with a horseshoe-style zipper to reveal admin panel organization similar to, yet different from, the original bag. To start, it definitely seems like this pocket has less depth, probably to give more space to the bottom stash pocket. The materials have also changed from a stretchy black mesh topped with elastic to a material that has an overall slight stretch in the same color as the liner. The pocket on the left is the right size for a minimalist wallet, while the right pocket is wider. Behind those is a large zipper pocket where you can stash small tech accessories like a stylus, dongles, or cards, and above that is a hidden pocket for a smart tracker. And when we say it’s hidden, we mean hidden. Our team of testers didn’t find it for weeks, so you can rest assured that a thief won’t be able to ditch your AirTag, Chipolo, or Tile within the first 10 seconds of getting their hands on your bag.

The same material is now used for the top quick-access pocket, as well. It’s a great place for sunglasses or your wallet, though a standard-sized phone is a tighter squeeze. This pocket used to be larger and padded, but now it doesn’t take up as much space dangling into the main compartment.

Against the back panel is the zipper for the laptop compartment. It still features soft fleece material against the back panel and an elevated, padded sleeve for up to a 16-inch device. However, there is also now a large slip pocket facing it for other gear, whether that’s a folder full of documents or even a slim tech pouch. You can squeeze something fairly large in here as long as you realize that none of the pockets and compartments on this bag have independent capacity and will all share space. In other words, there are plenty of places to put your gear, but you may not be able to use it all at once.

Finally, we come to the main compartment, which opens completely clamshell, hinging at the bottom, for easy packing. We like this because the bottom of the bag narrows, and the wide opening allows you to wedge in whatever you need in the space it fits best. Our primary tester has a small cooler that’s a bit wider than the bottom of the bag yet fits fine just a few inches from the bottom. She finds it fairly easy to plop it where it fits and zip the bag around it. Obviously, this style also comes in handy if you want to fill it with packing cubes full of a weekend’s worth of clothing instead.

There are a few more pockets to mention here. Against the back panel is a large slip pocket where you could slide a tablet in its case, winter gloves, or something else thin. It’s the same stretchy material as the admin panel pockets, and our only issue is that sliding gear on top of it can occasionally catch the top of the pocket since it’s not held very tightly to the back panel. There’s another zipper pocket made with the same material at the top of the front panel and a larger zipper pocket made of liner material at the bottom. They’re good for locking down small gear and stay flat if you don’t need them. Again, using these will impact the remaining space in the front pockets, so you need to pick and choose which you prefer.

If you’re a fan of the City Pack line, we think you’ll appreciate the upgrades. You might miss a side zipper pocket yet be happy about additional handles, so it balances out. The bag’s shape hasn’t changed much, so if you’re used to packing in a bag that tapers at the end, that shouldn’t bother you. If you’ve not tried it before, you might want to start with this one.