This Utah-based startup seems to remodel airport journey – Deseret News

Innovation is including comfort to many components of every day life. In Salt Lake City, journey is changing into one in all them.

Three Utahns just lately launched a startup enterprise, Bringit, to handle “luggage limbo” by dealing with baggage for vacationers coming out and in of Salt Lake International Airport.

Jenn Blackham, chief enterprise officer and head of operations for Bringit, advised the Deseret News the corporate supplies comfort for all vacationers that discover themselves with “two hands, a lot of responsibility and a lot of bags.”

Is journey the subsequent business to be revolutionized by fashionable expertise? Blackham stated Bringit may be proof.

“You pay for DoorDash. You pay for groceries. You pay for Amazon. Why should traveling be any different?”

What is Bringit?

Bringit is a privately owned enterprise contracted with the Salt Lake City airport. They name themselves the DoorDash of bags.

When vacationers use Bringit, their luggage are taken from airport baggage declare on to their vacation spot. Or, on the finish of their keep, delivered straight from their resort to the airport.

What does this imply for vacationers? Their trip time isn’t spent hauling baggage. For enterprise folks headed straight to conferences, large households with a number of luggage, aged folks with restricted mobility or clients with late check-ins, their trip time isn’t spent “babysitting” their baggage.

Israel Arellano, Bringit founder, CEO and head of product, stated in an period of expertise that streamlines on a regular basis duties, a revolution in journey was inevitable. He listed improvements like automated automobiles and over-the-phone medical care, saying, “It’s impossible to think that every single industry is evolving … but still every time we travel, we have to carry a big weight.”

How does it work?

After receiving info from clients, Bringit carriers retrieve baggage from baggage declare. If vacationers are handing off a carry-on, they meet the service on the airport’s info desk.

Carriers ship baggage to wherever the shopper has chosen — the entrance desk of a resort or one other safe location corresponding to an Airbnb or the house of returning Utah clients.

Bringit additionally presents companies to retrieve private objects from accommodations, Airbnbs or different areas and meet vacationers on the airport an hour earlier than their departure at hand off baggage. This permits vacationers to take pleasure in their final day of journey in Utah with out carrying baggage from an early check-out.

Customers also can use Bringit storage lockers inside the airport in order that between flights they will discover town with out carrying their baggage with them. Travelers can retailer baggage for a number of days if wanted.

It started with a dialog over espresso

Arellano got here up with the concept for Bringit in Miami and launched a small-scale trial. Though the trial was profitable, the COVID-19 pandemic crippled the journey business and the service by no means hit the bottom.

In December 2024, Arellano reached out to Blackham, a great good friend he knew from once they each lived in New York. Over dialog at a espresso store in Utah, the place each now dwell, he pitched the concept of working collectively to start out Bringit up once more.

Her first thought? “No, I can’t. I don’t know anything about travel.”

But the concept stayed together with her.

“I began pondering and I used to be like, ‘You know what? This could be really fun,” Blackham said.

Blackham has experience in small businesses after launching MDL notebooks in 2023 and several years of consulting wellness startups. She recruited Lee, her sister, who has experience in marketing with Sinclair Oil.

Three months after the initial conversation, they pitched the idea of making Salt Lake City a “hands-free destination” to the Salt Lake International Airport and the airport agreed to a contract. Bringit officially launched in February 2026.

Their vision is to “literally transform the way we travel,” Arellano told the Deseret News. “The moment you arrive to Salt Lake City, you can leave the airport hands-free.”

Facing the obvious hurdle: Consumer trust

Blackham said that since launching in February, they have made updates like allowing travelers to register multiple bags at once and incorporating constant lines of communication between customers and carriers.

Most importantly, Bringit needs to build consumer trust.

“The biggest challenge right now is culture,” Arellano said.

Arellano compared Bringit to companies like Uber or Airbnb. He said that though customers were hesitant at first to trust their travel or lodging to strangers, they adapted to the convenience.

“Yes, the first iteration is going to be, you know, kind of challenging,” Arellano said. “But five years from now, it’s going to be … BAU — enterprise as ordinary.”

Where does journey innovation go from right here?

“You know what is fun? That we’re working toward the future,” Arellano said.

Arellano said Bringit is still in a “soft launch” stage while they solidify operations, technology, logistics, platform and growth. He expects the company to be fully operational within the next 60 days.

“Right now, it’s like just putting our feet in the water, but the goal is to get five years from now and see a lot of people with no luggage in hand,” Arellano said, adding that they already have plans to start operations in other airports across the country.

Next year, he hopes to makes Bringit a B2B2C operation — business to business to consumer — partnering with airlines and hotels to offer Bringit services as part of resort or airline packages. American Express has already talked of partnering to provide Bringit services to their customers traveling in New York, Arellano said.

The Salt Lake tourism business is growing, and Blackham sees Bringit as a device to assist that development.

“A growing city needs to have growing services,” Blackham stated. “It elevates the city and the customer experience from the minute they land to the minute they leave.”