Jul 25, 2016In the 1950s, travel—as glamorous as it was—took a lot more effort. At the time, only two-thirds of American households had a telephone to call a Checker cab, let alone a smartwatch to summon a car at the tap of a button.
Fifty years ago, you could smoke on planes. Today, your smartwatch will send a reminder that you've been sedentary for too long, and that it's time to get up and stretch your legs. Back then, upon arrival at your destination, you would wait for a skycap to deliver your luggage to a counter, where you'd point it out and claim it. Now, you can track the whereabouts of your bags through an app on your wrist, so you know precisely where they are at any point during your journey. Years ago, your neighboring passenger was the main source of in-flight entertainment. These days, tablets, smartphones and wearables have taken their place.
If this is how drastic the changes have been in the past 50 years, we want to know what the next half-century will hold. The question is: How will wearable devices continue to alleviate our travel woes?
Wearables: Helping You Embrace the Journey Ahead
Wearables are beginning to change how we think about our travel experience and the overall journey upon which we embark. The technology industry has helped to completely transform what was once thought to be an overwhelming and chaotic experience, making it easier than ever—and allowing you to embrace a journey, full of journeys.
These days, if you're an early adopter, you will likely start your journey with a smartwatch notification letting you know that it is time to call a car to head to the airport. You'll tap the Uber app on your smartwatch, and you'll be on your way.
Let's think about some other ways in which you might use your wearable devices during air travel in the near future:
Your journey will continue as the Uber driver nears the airport, beacon technology and geofencing will allow airline employees to greet you at the terminal entrance, and your flight information will be pulled up right on your smartwatch. You'll easily pull up your boarding pass on the watch, thus cutting your check-in time in half.
As you drop your suitcase at the bag-drop, you'll be able to scan its digital luggage tag. With this capability, you'll be able to use your phone or watch to track the bag from the moment it enters the plane to the second it is loaded in pickup at the end destination.
While you await your flight, the experts will be preparing for takeoff. Your pilot will check the weather on her Apple Watch before boarding, to start preparing for the flight before stepping on the plane. Armed with smart glasses, your flight attendants will scan the plane's food and drink inventory as their glasses capture images of the stock, automatically sending an order for more Ginger Ale.
After the crew has prepared the plane and it's time to board, a flight attendant will scan your boarding pass, which you'll have pulled up on your watch. As you enter the plane, the watch will show a seat map and guide you to your seat.
When takeoff is under way, you will use the onboard Wi-Fi to track the plane's progress on a map on your watch. You'll see how much longer the flight is expected to be airborne. The watch will also provide real-time updates regarding other flights, letting you know if a connection is running late and providing gate updates as they happen. On long flights, you'll be able to order and pay for food and drinks on the watch as well. Your meal will be delivered directly to your seat, and you will never have to reach for a phone or wallet.
As the airplane begins its descent, you will pull up information on your watch about baggage location. Once the plane is on the ground, the watch will identify exactly where your luggage is located, thereby ensuring that no items are lost.
Passengers will travel safely and successfully, with all of the information right on their wrist.
Get on Board!
As consumers, airlines and airports continue to embrace wearable devices, we will see an increase in the technology being used to create a more personalized journey and overall customer experience during travel, while also cutting down the amount of time between when you book your travel and when you board your flight.
Most passengers on flights during the 1950s could not have predicted all of the changes that have occurred up to now, with such large changes in the ways we fly. With wearables gaining popularity and companies realizing their potential in the travel space, it is likely that the next fifty years will be just as unpredictable.
Charlie Isaacs is the CTO for customer connections at CRM software provider Salesforce. Isaacs has a track record of R&D leadership at Verizon, Answer Systems (acquired by Computer Associates), Broad Daylight (sold to Primus Knowledge, then ATG and then Oracle) and Kana (Verint). After working at Kana, he joined Alcatel-Lucent/Genesys as its VP of innovation. Isaacs now incubates customers worldwide onto the Salesforce IoT platform—which he calls "the best job at Salesforce."
