The Airbus A380, is the largest passenger airliner currently operating in the world. The extremely popular aircraft among the passengers isn’t doing god on the business front though and is still struggling to find wide acceptance among the world airlines. As a part of strategy to change that stance Airbus (headquartered in Blagnac, France) has launched a new iOS based Augmented Reality (AR) app called iflyA380.
It makes use of Apple’s AR app development platform the ARKit. It is actually an overlay on the existing booking assistant iflyA380.com. This will enable consumers get a look at the choices and features available to them in-flight. Passengers can also get a virtual walk-around in the cockpit of the A380. The AR isn’t just limited to that it also provides a walk around the cabin without having to leave your seats, information altitude, estimated arrival time, flight-speed in an interactive AR interface. Furthermore, if you’ll point your iOS device to your cabin’s window you can also gather information about all the points of interests that your plane is flying past.
The genesis of this app was fueled by Airbus’ finding that consumers seek to have a more personalized and bespoke experience when they are making travel arrangements. In addition to providing the Augmented Reality environment of the A380, the app also provides for flight bookings and real time updates in regards to their bookings and access to exclusive features and services supported by the A380 which includes suggesting potential destinations based on the geo-location information gathered by the app and also based on the consumer’s personal preferences.
You can also have a A380 flight directed to the requisite mobile website for making a booking using the IflyA380. As is the case with other flight booking airline app, passengers can also have their boarding passes scanned directly into the app and thus prevent the hassle of getting them verified again at boarding terminal.
The A380 has not been much of a success story ever since it made its first commercial flight in 2007. It has struggled to find buyers in airlines despite being a passenger favorite. The rolling out of this new app and the enthusiastic response it’s receiving is sure to calm the company’s nerves a notch.
