Imagining tomorrow's business travel: that's the mission that Air France has set itself with the third edition of these #AFDigidays, focusing on a 100% digital airport experience. Discreetly, from experimentation to implementation, the airline is making progress on the experience of its passengers before their flight, whether at home, in the office or at the airport. The integration of more ergonomic interactive kiosks, with a 17-inch screen for better visibility, which allow passengers to check in, edit their baggage tags or buy options for their flight, is part of this approach. In all, some 700 kiosks will soon be installed at the airline's 180 stations worldwide, including 250 at Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport alone. The new automatic baggage drop-off machines now being installed at the two Paris airports are also part of this drive to empower business travellers. Their promise: check-in in 45 seconds to make the passenger's journey as smooth as possible.
700 interactive terminals like this one will soon be installed at the airline's 180 ports of call (DR)
But the most significant advance is perhaps to be found further down the line, at the crucial moment of boarding. After conclusive test phases at Toulouse and Vienna airports, self-boarding has now made its appearance at Paris-CDG. It allows passengers to access the aircraft by scanning the application's flash code, thereby speeding up what can sometimes be a chaotic process. This is a major advance not only for the passenger, but also for the airline, which saves precious time in terms of aircraft occupancy and therefore punctuality. Tried out on a flight to Mexico City, self-boarding is said to have cut the time taken to fill a 747 from 40 to 20 minutes.
In terms of entertainment, the Air France Press application, which allows you to download 24 dailies and 38 magazines from 30 hours before your flight to the time of departure, is now available not only on tablets, but also on smartphones. To make reading easier on these mobile devices, an article-by-article reading function is also available.
All these innovations come at a cost: the Air France KLM Group has earmarked an investment of 60 million euros for this digitisation of the passenger journey.
