BOAC flight bag

In the movie The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Q (Desmond Llewelyn) is holding a BOAC flight bag when delivering the famous white Lotus Esprit to James Bond on the island of Sardinia, Italy.

The navy (dark blue) BOAC bag has a zipper and strap, white lines on the edges, and a white BOAC logo printed on each side. On one of the sides has an outside pocket with a white line above the BOAC logo. Q's bag is slightly wider on the bottom than on the top and has a (shoulder)strap which is attached on each end of the zipper. Q carries the bag with the zipper opened, and we can just see a beige item (a piece of clothing, an envelop or something else) in the bag.

These kind of BOAC bags are now still easy to find on eBay, but note that the correct film version of the bag is the one with the strap attached to the bag at each end of the zipper, and not the version with two handles attached to the side of the bag. Other versions exist with a more square shape (instead of the wider bottom version)

BOAC in Dr. No
This is not the first time a BOAC bag could be seen in a Bond film. In Dr. No (1962) when Bond leaves the Kingston Airport in Jamaica, he opens a taxi door for two stewardesses holding a green BOAC bag. A BOAC sign can also be seen in the airport, but Bond flew to Jamaica with Pan Am (flight 323).

BOAC and The Beatles
The Beatles also have been photographed with BOAC bags. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and drummer Jimmy Nicol (who stood in for sick Ringo Starr) posed with BOAC bags under a "BOAC welcomes The Beatles" sign at London Airport on June 9th 1964, after their return from The Netherlands, where they gave two concerts (only concerts ever in The Netherlands) in a small village called Blokker.

John Lennon was photographed in a more exotic location, the Bahamas (a classic James Bond location) resting his head on a blue BOAC bag during a break in the filming of the movie HELP! in 1965.

Jimi Hendrix
A similar BOAC bag as used by Q can also be spotted in Jimi Hendrix's apartment (now a museum) at Brook Street, London, containing his guitar repair kit.

About BOAC
BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) was the British state-owned airline created in 1940 by the merger of Imperial Airways and British Airways Ltd. In 1971 BOAC merged with (BEA) with effect from 31 March 1974, forming today's British Airways.