Qatar’s State-owned flag carrier Qatar Airways has recently joined the 3D virtual reality network metaverse by launching QVerse, a network that will offer a virtual reality experience for visitors to the carrier’s website.
Air travel goes meta
Visitors to Qatar Airways website are now able to virtually navigate the Premium Check-In area at various locations including Hamad International Airport (HIA), which acts as the home of Qatar Airways as well as Qatar’s principal international airport. Visitors to the website can also virtually explore the cabin interior of the aircraft, its award-winning Business Class (Qsuite), and Economy Class. To do so, customers will have to use their own Personal Electronic Devices – or PEDs.
The group chief executive of Qatar Airways, Akbar Al Baker, spoke of how exciting this latest move from the airline is:
“With physical boundaries beginning to be challenged by the metaverse on an increasingly larger scale, it is exciting to embrace a technology that enables all travel enthusiasts to enjoy a uniquely immersive experience of our award-winning products and services.”
Al Baker praised Qatar Airways’ status as the first airline to introduce a MetaHuman cabin crew and air travel experience and how the very venture into the metaverse is a testament to its “unwavering desire to innovate and delight our customers”.
Al Baker continued:
“We are constantly looking forward to adopting and introducing novel technologies that enhance our passengers’ complete journey.”
Qatar Airways is a trailblazer in the field of offering a metaverse cabin crew/airport experience. It’s the first global airline to introduce this kind of experience.
How was this possible and what does it involve?
The Qverse experience was developed using Epic Games’ Unreal Engine. Epic Games Inc is a video game, software developer, and publisher based in the U.S. Its Unreal Engine is currently the world’s most advanced real-time 3D creation tool for video game purposes. The Qverse was also developed using the cloud-based app MetaHuman Creator which is used to create high-fidelity digital humans.
The entire experience is called the ‘Qverse’ and is spearheaded by the digital high-fidelity 3D human model called “Sama”, a name of Arabic origin that translates to ‘sky’.
“Sama” provides an interactive customer experience by conversing with the user and by taking them on a tour-like journey that presents the features available in the Business and Economy Class cabins.
