If you are taking your flight from Paris Orly airport, you might meet warm smiling agents who greet and direct you to your boarding gate. These agents are actually virtual boarding agents who always smile, no need for breaks and most important never go on strike. This pilot project began last month and so far it’s been attracting many travelers to try to touch and speak to these 21st century avatars (remember “minority report” movie?).

Designer : L’Oeil du Chat via [WashingtonExaminer]

Image credit : AP Photo/Francois Mori

The idea came up from Airport authority AdP earlier this year as a way to modernize Hall 40, one of the dozens of boarding gates at Paris’ second airport. These virtual boarding agents are actually being rear-projected onto a human shaped silhouette made of plexiglass. Just press a button when it’s boarding time, the agent will come out of a thin air. Three airport boarding agents were filmed in a studio to create the illusions, the airport hopes that this way, the virtual boarding agents will be more eye-catching and easier for passengers to understand instead of traditional electric display terminals.

You’ll find the agent greet you such as “Bonjour! I invite you to go to your boarding gate. Paris Airports wishes you a bon voyage,” as the destination of your flight flashes in front of him. The technology behind these amazing virtual agents was developed by a Paris audiovisual marketing agency, L’Oeil du Chat where they have placed virtual agents in airports in London and Manchester earlier this year.

Image credit : AP Photo/Francois Mori

This airport’s experiment will be evaluated by the end of the year, which means if the passengers feel they are very helping, there’s a possibility that the project will be expanded to other boarding halls at Orly or to Paris’ larger Charles de Gaulle airport. Well, we do hope these virtual boarding agents test result is good, because we want to see more of them in every airport instead of electric displays.