STATE OF THE NATION
The sound of science
The start of the New Year finds the Editor a worried man.
become a thing of the past. The stress of
navigating airports, while burdened with
baggage, would cease. Having to queue
up at luggage drop-off and remove items
for security inspection would no longer
apply. There would be an end to the
terrorist threat that is allied to flying, even
internally, these days. No more lost bags –
or persons getting on the wrong flight. An
absence of in-flight rage, sitting in seats
that are too small and being fed (largely)
unpalatable food. No anxiety over whether
there will be a slot in the overhead bin for
your carry-on bag or whether that large
scruffy individual (who appears not to
have employed soap for some time) will be
occupying the adjacent seat.
Out on the ramp, that annual, multimillion
dollar ground damage bill would
simply evaporate. No interminable wait
whilst the missing passenger is located;
no holding pattern to allow a latecomer
to disgorge its contents; and no hanging
around because of a so-called technical
fault.
If you’ve smiled at this scenario, and
you’ve shaken your head, it’s because all
the ailments of air travel cannot yet be
dismissed. In fact, airframe manufacturers
predict that many more aircraft will be
required over the next 20 years, and it’s
not just about more passengers flying,
either; Boeing, for example, says that the
freighter fleet forecast alone will call for
3,260 aircraft in service in 2037, an increase
of 70% over the in-service fleet of 1,870
from 2017.
The only downside that I see will be the
empty terminals; after all, autonomous
GSE and AI are already slowly reducing the
handler requirement.
Perhaps all those redundant stations
could be transformed into museums
dedicated to a more stressful era?
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I’ve just had a glimpse of the future - and
I’m a little concerned.
Why?
Well, it doesn’t include handlers, far less
airlines…
Towards the end of 2018, Air France-KLM
publicised something novel that it felt would
have a huge impact on the aviation sector. Its
iFly VR concept builds on the pre-existing
premise of virtual reality headsets, which
have been grabbing the media’s attention
over the last 18 months.
According to KLM’s rubric, “if you’re in
the mood for a faraway trip, you won’t even
have to leave your home. With the new iFly
virtual reality, you can now take a virtual
trip.”
KLM’s online platform makes use of VR to
let visitors experience a near-lifelike journey.
The carrier says that it wants to inspire
people to travel and discover the world – and
that this will be achieved with the help of the
latest technology, namely VR.
So far, so good. What we have here is a
marketing tool, one designed to extol the
virtues of a virgin beach or impress the
intrepid with the radiance of a rainforest.
Forget the colourful travel agent brochures;
slip on the headset and you can actually
stand on that shimmering strand or
be climbing up through the canopy. So
immersive will be the experience that KLM
is quite convinced that the user will be
hastily signing up for the next available flight
to the destination experienced.
But isn’t all this vaguely familiar? Anyone
who has watched Total recall will know
that the protagonist of a future time went
on a holiday in his head, thanks to the
availability of a simple medical procedure.
Our inhabitant of the future simply listed
the holiday elements that were desirable on
his itinerary and the drugs did the rest.
Fictional state?
Total fiction, I hear you say. Well, yes, of
course it is. VR is very much in its infancy
at present (although anyone who’s tried
out the glasses will attest to their amazing
capabilities).
But what if…
But what if that very same technology
were further enhanced? Build in the physical
sensations, like touch and sound, heat and
cold, and all the other tiny ingredients, and
in time you’d have a very realistic experience
indeed, one that could well mimic the reality
of foreign travel. It’s not too difficult to
imagine, either.
Taken to its logical extreme, then, the
future could be one of staycations, to use a
word recently coined.
Alarming?
Take a look at the
broader picture.
So many of the
problems
that beset the
aviation sector
would be completely
erased.
That international bugbear,
aircraft CO2 emissions, would
So many of the problems that beset the aviation
sector would be completely erased
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