At the airport, you’re often balancing an overpriced sandwich on top of a bulky suitcase while struggling with choppy departure lounge Wi-Fi. But imagine being free from those heavy bags, relaxing in a comfortable chair and logging into your favourite game to compete with players from around the world.
This is the dream of Victorien Defosse, cofounder and CEO of French gaming startup Unboared, which provides gaming areas for waiting spaces in places such as airports and arenas. Defosse predicts that future airports will be like amusement parks.
“I think when you go to an airport for travel, the airport will be part of the travel and will be one of the best experiences that you have during your travel,” he says.
Corporate partners might be on board with the idea. This week, Unboared won first prize at the Airport Innovation Days in Paris, the fourth edition of a startup competition run by Groupe ADP, one of the biggest airport operators in the world. Here’s why Groupe ADP thinks that Unboared and the other two competition winners — Jabu, a food waste startup and Hylight, a remote inspection company — are ones to watch.
Happy travellers, better rankings
The future of air travel looks bright, with international tourism bouncing back to 96% of pre-pandemic levels in the seven months through July 2024, according to UN Tourism.
But this also means airports will be competing to deliver the best experience to their customers so they visit them again. One measure of this is the ASQ Awards which recognise “airport excellence in customer experience” with over 400 participating airports.
“We are trying to build spaces for leisure, for children and families to help airports to increase their ranking on ASQ criteria." — Victorien Defosse, co-founder and chief executive officer at Unboared
Defosse’s goal for Unboared is to increase the ASQ ratings of the airports it works with. Instead of typical airport gaming areas — which might offer a singular console designed for individual use in a home or a handful of arcade games — Defosse says that Unboared’s technology is specifically designed for high-traffic areas as it allows travellers to play interactive games on a big screen by using their smartphones as controllers.
“We are trying to build spaces for leisure, for children and families to help airports to increase their ranking on ASQ criteria,” he says. “We have a product which is working and we want to commercialise it.”
“It's wonderful for us to be able to test and to implement our solution in that kind of big company.” — Defosse, Unboared
As part of the first prize, Unboared will be able to work on a proof of concept with Groupe ADP. Defosse hopes that it will help the startup to expand into other spaces, like train stations and event arenas. “It's wonderful for us to be able to test and to implement our solution in that big company,” he says. “We want to have a great network where Unboared is available.”
For Alban Negret, head of innovation and corporate venture at Groupe ADP and one of the judges of this year’s Airport Innovation Days in Paris, finding technologies that can be used in airports as well as other industries and verticals is what the competition is all about.
“We are not a tech company, we are not inventing things internally, we are trying to benefit from and leverage what’s best on the market and what’s available in the external world in startups to inject into our daily operations,” he says. “Sometimes it’s not coming from the aviation business and that’s also the point of this event. It’s to gather solutions that are coming from other industries.”
A greener airport, a better airport
While better customer experiences is one goal for the airport industry, airports have a variety of needs. Negret says this is why they are the perfect testbeds for startups.
“For this contest we wanted to find different solutions that are answering the different needs that we have and the needs are various,” he says. “When you look at an airport, it’s a city, it’s a commercial model, it’s real estate, it’s an aerospace playground, it’s a lot of different businesses.”
Arguably the biggest need, though ,is the reduction of carbon emissions. The second prize winner, French startup Jabu, is hoping to test out its food waste reduction tech with Groupe ADP. The solution uses AI to capture the preferences and eating habits of guests to anticipate the quantities of food needed, thus minimising waste.
“We’ve already worked with schools in France, in catering and in some restaurants and now our goal is to use Jabu in airports.” — Axel Galliano, co-founder at Jabu
“In France, 17% of food purchases are waste in the catering sector so our goal is to reduce this food waste,” says Axel Galliano, cofounder of Jabu. “We’ve already worked with schools in France, in catering and in some restaurants and now our goal is to use Jabu in airports.”
Jabu will first deploy its solution in the Groupe ADP staff canteen before moving on to its airports. Galliano says he wants to cut food waste in the staff canteen by “30% minimum.”
Also decarbonising airports is the third winner of the competition, French startup Hylight. The company uses its airship drone, HyLighter — which is powered by electricity and equipped with multiple sensors — to accurately inspect large infrastructure, such as power lines, gas pipelines and railways, in one flight. This is a task which would previously require helicopters, which are polluting, or drone planes and satellites, which are not precise enough.
