A luxury airline says it'll hand out Apple Vision Pro to select passengers

AppleInsider

In an effort to improve inflight entertainment, Beond airline will be giving certain customers on its flights the Apple Vision Pro.

Image Credit: Beond

Beond bills itself as the world's first "premium leisure airline" and offers business-class-only accommodations to its customers. This includes seats that fold down completely, gourmet meals, and, for some passengers -- the Apple Vision Pro.

"The Apple Vision Pro will transform the inflight entertainment experience, and we will be first to offer it to select passengers," Beond CEO Tero Taskila said in a press statement.

"Offering the Apple Vision Pro is another step in our vision of delivering a premium travel experience to our customers, from the start to finish of their journey. We're proud to be the first airline to deploy the technology."

While this seems like a neat accommodation for an airline to offer, it's not without drawbacks. The Apple Vision Pro is generally custom-fitted to the customer at the time of purchase. Passengers may find that the provided Apple Vision Pro does not fit properly.

There is also some concern with cleaning the headsets between customers, a topic we've covered in our look at professional use cases for the Apple Vision Pro.



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Xed

This isn't a criticism per se, but this does read like a cheap attempt by this single-plane airline out of the Maldives to gain some press off of the Apple Vision Pro.

MacPro

Xed said:

This isn't a criticism per se, but this does read like a cheap attempt by this single-plane airline out of the Maldives to gain some press off of the Apple Vision Pro.

Or attract passengers?  Sounds like a great marketing idea to me.  I hope every airline does this, and soon, we are flying a first-class round trip to Europe in July; I'd love it if this were the case on our flights.

iOS_Guy80

I could foresee passengers bringing their own light seal and lenses, just like people bringing their own headsets on flights.

chasm

MacPro said:

Sounds like a great marketing idea to me.  I hope every airline does this, and soon, we are flying a first-class round trip to Europe in July; I'd love it if this were the case on our flights.

If you can afford first-class round trips to Europe, you can probably also spare the cost of a Vision Pro for yourself, and that way you’ll have the custom lenses (if needed) and light seals to make your experience better — and you can take it on other flights, too.

For those not prone to motion sickness, I suspect the Vision Pro will be a great tool to help the time go by.

Xed

iOS_Guy80 said:

I could foresee passengers bringing their own light seal and lenses, just like people bringing their own headsets on flights.

In your scenario are these people being Zeiss lenses for AVP and also getting fitted for and buying their light seals for AVP, but not buying the full AVP all because they plan to fly on this Maldives airlines enough to make it worthwhile, or are they simply not bringing the the computing part of their personal AVP on their trip, which is the part that stores all their data and has their personal setup already in place for use on the plane and anywhere else they may be residing? I don't think either scenario is something that would ever be done.

Xed

MacPro said:

Xed said:

This isn't a criticism per se, but this does read like a cheap attempt by this single-plane airline out of the Maldives to gain some press off of the Apple Vision Pro.

Or attract passengers?  Sounds like a great marketing idea to me.  I hope every airline does this, and soon, we are flying a first-class round trip to Europe in July; I'd love it if this were the case on our flights.

1) I'm not sure how else to point out that this is clearly a marketing idea and that my statement of "gain some press" is to attract passengers.

2) Why not just buy your own instead of hoping that an airline has them and the correct right lenses and light seal combos? You’d also have to deal with the setup and configuration on the flight and wouldn’t have any personal settings unless you wanted to brave putting in your personal passwords into a device you don’t own. How exactly is entertainment going to be streamed with the device? 

chasm

Xed said:

This isn't a criticism per se, but this does read like a cheap attempt by this single-plane airline out of the Maldives to gain some press off of the Apple Vision Pro.

Of course it is. Most news stories you read in any medium started off their lives as press releases, thus the name. If a commercial venture has an interesting angle or offers something unique or that readers of [name of publication here] would be interested in, chances are quite high that the publication will get in touch for further information, and develop an article about it.

I think we can all see what the “hook” in this particular press release was that got AI interested in turning it into a story. Indeed, the airline probably sent this info to AI because of the many other AVP articles the site has run lately.

jimh2

MacPro said:

Xed said:

This isn't a criticism per se, but this does read like a cheap attempt by this single-plane airline out of the Maldives to gain some press off of the Apple Vision Pro.

Or attract passengers?  Sounds like a great marketing idea to me.  I hope every airline does this, and soon, we are flying a first-class round trip to Europe in July; I'd love it if this were the case on our flights.

I’m certain your ticket was dirt cheap compared to a single-plane airline out of the Maldives. 

dutchlord

Thank you for flying Zombie Airlines! 

witttr

Most likely you will end up having your flight cancelled, so don’t get too excited about the marketing gimmick.

Flight this February from Munich to Male and back. I was excited to experience this new airline. However, 4 days before our journey started they cancelled. I called the service center and they offered a connecting flight with ITA via Rome. It was a bit longer, but my family and I were okay with the change (it can happen). We arrived a bit later but the business class was a good experience. On the day of return, we arrived at the gate in Male to find the flight had been canceled again. The team made us wait until a supervisor came by. They explained that there are no more business class tickets available and we are being offered an economy ticket with Qatar 9 hours later. Quickly looking on the various web-sites it was clear both Qatar and Emirates had business class tickets available. I called the call center in Dubai to be informed that they were unwilling to purchase business class and we would only be receiving economy class tickets. I went ahead an purchased the return flights on my own and will be seeking reimbursement and if needed legal support. So sad. We go multiple times per year to the Maldives and I was really looking forward to this new airline. Didn’t get a chance to experience it and will never book it again.

dewme

Putting on the "Birthday Sombrero" at a Mexican restaurant while they sing Happy Birthday in Spanish is something I refuse to do. Music okay. Other people's DNA, nope. The thought of strapping on a Vision Pro that's been strapped to dozens or hundreds of other people's sweaty faces in a hard No. I'll bring my own noise cancelling headphones and a book or watch movies. When you fly nonstop between Newark <-> Singapore you can watch around 8 movies and still have time to snooze for a few hours, in the comfort of your own personal devices of course.

MacPro

Xed said:

MacPro said:

Xed said:

This isn't a criticism per se, but this does read like a cheap attempt by this single-plane airline out of the Maldives to gain some press off of the Apple Vision Pro.

Or attract passengers?  Sounds like a great marketing idea to me.  I hope every airline does this, and soon, we are flying a first-class round trip to Europe in July; I'd love it if this were the case on our flights.

1) I'm not sure how else to point out that this is clearly a marketing idea and that my statement of "gain some press" is to attract passengers.

2) Why not just buy your own instead of hoping that an airline has them and the correct right lenses and light seal combos? You’d also have to deal with the setup and configuration on the flight and wouldn’t have any personal settings unless you wanted to brave putting in your personal passwords into a device you don’t own. How exactly is entertainment going to be streamed with the device? 

The main reason I resisted is that I'd need to buy two.  I can hardly sit there and watch a movie in the evening with my wife next to me.  Had I been a bachelor or between wives I wouldn't have hesitated!  .  I suspect a better version of them will come in the not-too-distant future, and I can wait.  The airline idea, and why I commented, was that we could both use them. I should have added that to my initial post.

MacPro

chasm said:

MacPro said:

Sounds like a great marketing idea to me.  I hope every airline does this, and soon, we are flying a first-class round trip to Europe in July; I'd love it if this were the case on our flights.

If you can afford first-class round trips to Europe, you can probably also spare the cost of a Vision Pro for yourself, and that way you’ll have the custom lenses (if needed) and light seals to make your experience better — and you can take it on other flights, too.

For those not prone to motion sickness, I suspect the Vision Pro will be a great tool to help the time go by.

Same answer as I gave Xed above this post.

libertyandfree

Xed said:

This isn't a criticism per se, but this does read like a cheap attempt by this single-plane airline out of the Maldives to gain some press off of the Apple Vision Pro.

What is the point of this comment?  Sounds like you are against marketing which every single successful company in the world does. Even Apple does marketing. 

charlesn

The Apple Vision Pro fitting process: "It begins with a retail worker scanning the user’s face, similar to the Face ID setup using a special app, determining the correct light seal, foam cushion, and band size needed for an optimal fit." 

But, yeah, tell me again how this airline is just gonna be handing out Vision Pros like dry-roasted cashews to its first class customers. I guess they'll have a lens lab onboard, too, so they can accommodate those who need corrective lenses. This is bullahite PR to cash in on those with money and no common sense. 

MacPro

jimh2 said:

MacPro said:

Xed said:

This isn't a criticism per se, but this does read like a cheap attempt by this single-plane airline out of the Maldives to gain some press off of the Apple Vision Pro.

Or attract passengers?  Sounds like a great marketing idea to me.  I hope every airline does this, and soon, we are flying a first-class round trip to Europe in July; I'd love it if this were the case on our flights.

I’m certain your ticket was dirt cheap compared to a single-plane airline out of the Maldives. 

Not sure why my post seemed to attract snarky comments, but yes, you are correct; it's $15K round trip Boston to the Maldives, twice the price of Zurich.  Distance kind of matters.