ORLY, France (AP) ? An airport in France is experimenting with “virtual” boarding agents in a bid to jazz up its terminals with 21st century avatars who always smile, don’t need breaks and never go on strike.
The pilot project at Paris’ Orly airport began last month, and 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.
Airport authority AdP came up with the idea for what it calls “2-D holograms” earlier this year, when it was brainstorming ways to modernize Hall 40, one of the dozens of boarding gates at Paris’ second airport, south of the capital.
