Brussels: Virgin Atlantic staff will soon be using Google Glass to check in passengers following a successful six week trial earlier this year, the airlines chief executive has revealed.
Speaking at the SITA Ar Transport IT Summit on Thursday, Craig Kreeger said “Virgin Atlantic will be customising Google Glass across it staff.”
Earlier this year, Virgin Atlantic check in staff trialled the Google Glass at its London Heathrow hub. Virgin Atlantic also used Sony smart watches, however, Kreeger said they were not customer friendly because staff were constantly looking at their wrists.
Virgin Atlantic used just the one pair of Google Glass in the trial and was only used to check in passengers flying at the pointy end of the plane.
“We don’t have a definitive date and we haven’t decided where we will expand beyond the upper class but we will go beyond Heathrow,” Kreeger said when pressed for details.
Kreeger declined to reveal how many pairs of Google Glass it will seek to purchase or under what time frame.
On Wednesday, SITA, which was involved in the trial, confirmed it has spent nearly $20,000 on 12 pairs of Google Glass’.
Kreeger admitted “access to the [Google] glass has been a constraint to move forward.” The products availability is restricted globally, however, SITA also confirmed this week that Google will sell as many pairs as necessary to the air transport communications and IT company.
