Get outside

Texas startup creates otherworldly campers for your outdoor adventures

The Mantis sleeps four-plus adults.

Photo courtesy of TAXA Outdoors

In 2014 Garrett Finney, a former senior architect at the Habitability Design Center at NASA, brought his expertise in what he describes as "advocating for human presence living in a machine" to the outdoors market.

After being less-than enchanted by the current RV and camper offerings, the Houstonian developed a new series of adventure vehicles that could safely and effectively get users off-grid — even if still Earth-bound — under the company he dubbed TAXA Outdoors.

The vehicles would follow much of the same standards that Finney worked under at NASA, in which every scenario and square inch would be closely considered in the smartly designed spaces. And rather than designing the habitats for style alone, function and storage space for essential gear took precedence. According to Finney, the habitat was to be considered a form of useful adventure equipment in its own right.

"Ceilings should be useful. They're not just for putting lights on," he says. "Even when there's gravity that's true."

Today TAXA offers four models of what they call "mobile human habitats" that can be towed behind a vehicle and sleep three to four adults, ranging from about $11,000 to $50,000 in price.

And amid the pandemic — as people were looking for a safe way to escape their homes and get outside — the TAXA habitats were flying off the shelves, attracting buyers in Texas, but also those in Colorado, California, and other nature-filled areas.

"January [2020] was looking really good — like the break-out year. And then the pandemic was a huge red flag all around the world," Finney says. "[But] we and all our potential customers realized that going camping was the bet. They were with their family, they were getting outside, they were achieving sanity having fun and creating memories."

According to TAXA president Divya Brown, the company produced a record 430 habitats in 2020. But it still wasn't enough to match the number of orders coming in.

"We had we had almost a year and a half worth of backlog at the old facility, which we've never experienced before," Brown says.

To keep up with demand, the company moved into a new 70,000-square-foot Houston space that allows multiple operations lines, as well as a showroom for their vehicles and enough room for their staff, which tripled in size from 25 to 75 employees since the onset of the pandemic.

After making up for the backlog in 2020, TAXA hopes to produce more than 1,000 habitats by the end of 2021 and 3,000 in coming years.

"It's a pretty significant jump for us," Brown says. "We really believe there's a huge market for this."

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A version of this story originally appeared on our sister site, InnovationMap.com.

The Mantis sleeps four-plus adults.

Photo courtesy of TAXA Outdoors

The Mantis sleeps four-plus adults.

transportation vacation technology

Airline News

American Airlines launches new gate program to foil early boarders

Photo courtesy of American Airlines

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Fort Worth-based American Airlines has launched a new system to catch passengers who try to sneak ahead in line.

According to a release, the airline is deploying a program in which technology is used to deter passengers who try to board before their official boarding group has been called.

Passengers who try to board early will not only hear a beep when they scan their boarding pass, but a tattletale message will pop up on the scanner, alerting the American Airlines employee of the passenger's correct group.

The airline trialed this modern technology over the past month at Albuquerque International Sunport, Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, and Tucson International Airport. It will now be deployed at more than 100 airports across the U.S.

If a customer boards before their assigned group is called, the new software will not accept the boarding pass and instead makes an audible sound to alert the gate agent and customer that the group has not yet been called. In these instances, the American team member will invite the customer to rejoin the line when their boarding group is called.

According to a story in the NY Post, airline employees have a name for these people: “gate lice."

A statement from American Airlines says that those passengers who are paying for early access should get their just desserts. People who are paying extra are mad when others get the same benefits.

"The new technology is designed to ensure customers receive the benefits of priority boarding with ease," it says.

Surely a factor is the way American Airlines' current boarding system has become an exercise in the haves vs. the have-nots, with nine levels of boarding groups, from elite status members and credit card holders all the way down to the Basic Economy nobodies. It's gotten worse since the pandemic, with extra charges applied to every element of flying, including a charge if you want to choose your own seat.

As an explanation of why people might do it, the NY Post cites a theory that travelers try to get ahead "out of a tendency of conformity and a sense of competition."

Public shaming is a powerful motivator, and Larry David fans would surely agree that line-cutters should always be called out — but in this case, there is an actual valid reason for trying to get a jump in line, and that can be summed up in two words: overhead bins.

Too many travelers place their luggage in overhead bins that are not located over their seats. Who has not seen the guy breezily stash his suitcase in whatever bin is closest? And this is an inequity that is not addressed by flight attendants, who admittedly have enough on their hands.

But the fact remains that if you get on the plane when your boarding group boards, the odds are slimmer that your designated overhead bin is going to have room for your suitcase.

If the airline is not going to enforce the overhead bin situation, then it's hardly fair to blame gate lice for worrying about where their suitcase is going to end up — or worse, whether they'll face the horror of having to get their bag checked at the last minute because some other passenger stole their overhead space.

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