Paris Airport Gets Holographic Boarding Agents

“Bonjour! I invite you to go to your boarding gate. Paris Airports wishes you a bon voyage,” the attendant in front of you smiles. Except he isn’t really in front of you–he’s not real. He’s a hologram at Paris’ Orly Airport Hall 40.

Paris’ smaller, secondary Orly Airport serves primarily flights headed south towards Corisica. Recently its Hall 40 received a bit of an upgrade. In addition to creating additional seating and room for 400 waiting passengers, they also installed these incredible Holographic Boarding Agents (hint: it’s the guy on the left.)

Now, these agents aren’t the free-standing “Obi-Wan, You’re My Only Hope” sort of holograms we’ve been promised since the ’70s. Instead, a prerecorded video image is rear-projected onto a human-shaped piece of Plexiglass to alert passengers when and where to get on their flight. And while it won’t be able to tear a ticket like a real attendant, Orly authorities hope that they will provide a more intuitive means of displaying boarding info. According to officials, the 2D agents have received a generally positive. “Children like it, it’s fun. They’re attracted to it and try to play with it,” Didier Leroy, the airport’s director of operations, told the AP.

And hey, at least they won’t strike like their flesh-and-blood counterparts! [Yahoo News via Ubergizmo]