Chatbots and other virtual assistants are in fashion and every self-respecting airline must have an initiative on the subject. And in this matter it’s a bit like hotel robots, even if it’s less extreme: you can find everything. From the really useful for the customer to the simple gadget.
It is in this context that the low-cost airline AirAsia announces a redesign of its website, its mobile application and the introduction of a virtual assistant called AVA for AirAsia Virtual AllStar.
The application will benefit from:
– a new redesigned homepage for a more fluid navigation and a quick access to useful information.
– The ability to choose your flights from a map of Asia. It seems that this is a first for an airline app.
And, most interestingly for us:
– Integration with SIRI on iOS to directly query the application with the voice.
– A facial recognition system for faster passage through checkpoints and boarding. Named FACE for Fast Airport Clearance Experience System. All the passenger has to do is take a 5-second video of his face. This device was launched as a pilot for one year at Senai airport while waiting to integrate it with the Malaysian facial identification system. This now seems to be a done deal and the integration of FACE in the application suggests that the system will soon be available in a growing number of airports.
These are rather interesting announcements that we are waiting to see in action because they propose significant evolutions to what the mobile applications of airlines offer today.
The only downside is that a number of these new features are currently only available for iOS with no clear timeline for Android.
