What is a Barf Bag?

Edison may have had his light bulb, Bell may have had his telephone, but only Gilmore T. Schjeldahl, a self-taught inventor from North Dakota, has his "barf bag." Mr. Schjeldahl is generally credited with creating the first plastic-lined airsickness bag, which debuted on Northwest Oriental Airlines planes in 1949. This wasn't the first barf bag ever used by airsick passengers or crews on commercial flights, but at least it was the first one designed specifically for that purpose.

A barf bag, also known as an airsickness bag or sick bag, is a lined paper bag generally stored in the same holders as in-flight magazines and other airline-provided propaganda. If a passenger suddenly becomes nauseated because of motion sickness, claustrophobia or an anxiety attack, the barf bag provides a more discreet option for vomiting.

During the early days of air travel, motion or air sickness was a common occurrence, since the planes were generally smaller and more susceptible to the effects of air turbulence. Commercial airlines found themselves faced with a significant problem, since the sight and sound of vomiting passengers could prove detrimental for future business, not to mention the problem of keeping the plane hygienic. Various types of disposable containers were tried on early commercial flights, but it wasn't until Schjeldahl developed a plastic-lined paper bag that a suitable "barf bag" solution was found.

Schjeldahl himself was not working on a future airsickness bag at the time, however. He was employed by the Armour meat company to work on new food packaging featuring the new polyethylene plastic. A plastic-lined bag originally designed for food packaging proved to be an ideal solution for the airsickness problem faced by commercial airlines, so Schjeldahl's invention became the prototype for future airsickness bags everywhere.

Because many modern passenger planes are larger and passengers experience less in-flight turbulence, a much smaller percentage of flyers have become airsick. Airlines still provide airsickness bags, but quite often those bags contain other information, such as emergency procedures. Some modern airsickness bags are printed with games and puzzles, or at least scoreboards for card games.

There is actually a subculture of airline memorabilia collectors who seek out unused airsickness bags as part of their collections. The original Schjeldahl-designed bags are popular, as well as bags from foreign airlines and defunct domestic airlines such as Eastern. One barf bag collector is said to have over 5,000 items in his personal collection, and collectors routinely meet to display their recent acquisitions or swap with others.