This weekend we present a look at the future of room service and packing. Plus, we bring up an article about legroom and safety that was prompted by the recent DOT Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protection. Should the FAA get involved with personal space on planes? Should humans be guaranteed humane conditions?
The dawn of the robot revolution in hotels
Last week, I attended the Unmanned Conference in Atlanta. This is the kind of futuristic system I expected to find there. But, it was being demoed at a hotel conference where Aloft Hotels is actively testing its use in California. Would this be an addition to room service that travelers might welcome?
The hotel industry is going robotic. But not in a scary, Skynet Terminator style way, thankfully. No, this fleet of robots is helping hoteliers save money and boost customer service all while adding a fun way for guests to interact with an intriguing piece of technology.
…this little robot, that stands as tall as your typical Star Wars R2 unit, is a great way to free up employees from mundane and time consuming tasks such as delivering a toothbrush to a guestroom. This way hotel staff can focus on wowing hotel guests with enriched customer service.
“This robot is something interesting that helps attract millennials, and others, too. But Relay also allows the hotel’s staff to focus on higher level tasks, like interacting with guests. Let the robot do the boring work of riding elevators and walking down halls and let humans provide better service,” said Savioke CEO Steve Cousins.
DUFL might change the way you pack and travel
While technology has changed everything that happens to luggage, from its construction to tracking and to check-in at airports, packing is still the same as it has always been — repetitive and by hand by travelers. DUFL is planning to change packing, especially for business travelers. Its system will take care of the packing, cleaning and repacking of your business clothing for travelers and deliver it to business hotels. Can this work?
The developers of DUFL have one simple mission:
Change the way the world travels.
In fact, per DUFL:
The DUFL app gives frequent business travelers the freedom to roam untethered. Our secure, sophisticated platform delivers your bag where and when you need it. With each use your clothing is cleaned the way you like it, stored in your virtual closet and prepared for your next trip.
At first, I was curious and intrigued.
How it works, per DUFL:
Travelers just download the free app to create a user account and request a Welcome Kit, which contains a large DUFL suitcase that the customer can fill with his or her business wardrobe. The bag is then delivered to DUFL’s secure warehouse, where its contents are inventoried, photographed, cleaned and then stored until the next trip is scheduled. Photographs of the inventoried items are then visible to the user within the DUFL app, giving them full visibility into their DUFL virtual closet.
Less legroom in the air, less safety
The latest Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protection meeting had journalists buzzing about the health and safety of the decrease in legroom in today’s aircraft. More and more passengers are being squeezed into the back of the plane. At the hearing, the FAA representative admitted that planes with 28-inch seat pitch have been tested.
And Travelers United is asking Congress to instruct the FAA to determine humane personal space on aircraft.
Adam Mintner, writing for Bloomberg, asks whether better profits with more passengers on planes might mean less safety in case of evacuations.
On American Airlines, for example, economy class seat pitch — the distance between a point on a seat and the same one in front of it that’s a rough approximation of legroom — went from 32-35 inches in 2002, to 30-32 inches in 2014. Budget carrier Spirit has shrunk the pitch to as low as 28 inches.
But in the United States, at least, the Federal Aviation Administration’s evacuation tests don’t account for drastically reduced seat pitches — a point made during a hearing on Tuesday in front of the Department of Transportation’s Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protection. Cynthia Corbett, a human factors researcher at the FAA, which sets the parameters for evacuation tests, told the committee that the “default” pitch used in their studies, including evacuation studies, is 31 inches.
Why? “We just haven’t considered other pitches, in general.” That seems like a potentially reckless oversight.
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
