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Virgin Atlantic Using ARINC's "Thin Client" Check-in
Airlines normally need months of preparation to launch passenger service at a new airport. Installation of check-in workstations, dedicated phone lines, servers, server testing, and software configuration can require weeks of work at the site.
But when Virgin Atlantic launched its scheduled service from San Juan, Puerto Rico, in late 2009, the airline’s employees simply wheeled in five laptops and printers to San Juan International Airport, and plugged them in. Within minutes, they were checking in passengers for the first flight.
This rapid service launch was made possible by a new check-in system, vMUSE EnterpriseSM, developed by ARINC in cooperation with Virgin Atlantic. The system is a “virtual processing” solution, relying on an ARINC processing center instead of local hardware to run check-in and boarding applications. This dramatically reduces the on-site hardware and allows check-ins to be deployed on inexpensive laptops or simple terminals. The system will be demonstrated at PTE Expo 2010 in Brussels, Belgium, March 23-25, and at IATA’s “Wings of Change” in Santiago, Chile, March 24-25.
“From the point of view of price, efficiency, and speed of deployment, the new ARINC vMUSE Enterprise check-in system is clearly a winner for us, providing Virgin Atlantic with a robust solution from a supplier with a proven track record in the portable check in technology market,” said David Wilding, Airport IT Business Partner at Virgin Atlantic.
Mike Picco, ARINC Vice President, Airport Systems, said, “Virgin Atlantic was one of the first airlines to use our earlier generation of portable check-ins. Their helpful suggestions contributed greatly to the design of vMUSE Enterprise—specifically, making initial deployment as simple as possible, and minimizing the effort in software updates.”
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» Hamdi Chaouk, Director General of Civil Aviation – Lebanon
