Brave New World of Travel

Paris' Orly airport recently began experimenting with "virtual" boarding agents, similar to holograms, earlier this month. The 'pilot' project has so far been met with a mix of amusement and surprise by travellers, who frequently try to touch and speak with the strikingly life-like video images that greet them and direct them to their boarding gate. 


The images materialize seemingly out of thin air when a boarding agent — a real live human — presses a button to signal the start of boarding. They are actually being rear-projected onto a human shaped silhouette made of plexiglass. Three actual airport boarding agents were filmed in a studio to create the illusion, which the airport hopes will be more eye-catching and easier for passengers to understand than traditional electronic display terminals.


Keep watching the Skies, Pete