The famous Emirates in-flight customer experience gets a hi-tech addition-- the airline's crew members now carry Windows 8 tablets to keep track of passenger needs.
The tablets (the HP ElitePad 900 is the model of choice) carry Knowledge Driven Inflight Service (KIS), a proprietary app providing touch-based access to passenger preferences (such as meals or seating positions) to the 24-strong cabin crews on each flight.
Before flights pursers brief cabin crews through the tablets, and in turn crews can enter "voyage reports" after each flight. Reports then sync from landed aircraft to airline teams and executives.
Why did Emirates choose Windows 8 instead of the current tablet leader, the iPad? KIS is the chief reason. The software has been around since the early 2000s (running on HP Compaq T1100 laptops), and Emirates preferred to update it into a Windows 8 app instead of porting to a different operating systems.
Development of the Windows 8 version of KIS took all of 6 months according to Emirates.
Meanwhile the ElitePad 900 is ideal an enterprise-class tablet (complete with business support and services) with the appropriately sleek appearance and allows for on-site device repair.
December 2012 sees a test program for the tablet system, before a 3-4 month global rollout to all 16000 Emirates cabin crews from January 2013. Let us know if you happen to fly Emirates and see the program running in the wild!
Go Emirates Soars With Windows 8 Business Application and HP Tablet