Alitalia replaces in-flight meal with VR-food-experience

Alitalia is searching for ways to make the airline profitable and now sets another step towards that goal: They will replace the traditional in-flight meal with a completely digital VR-experience.

Virtual Reality is getting more and more accessible and airlines are experimenting with smart ways to use it. Alitalia says it has been experimenting with VR in their game studio in Rome and is ready to make the next step. Marco Risotto explains: “We can completely eliminate the cost of the in-flight meal while our passengers still experience Italian cuisine.” For the passenger there is also a win: “The digital food experience contains absolutely no calories”.

The experience is reported to be very similar to the traditional in flight meal with virtual plastic spoons and little room to consume the meal. Even small details like waiting for an hour before someone takes away your trash are taken into account. There is a different experience for business and economy class passengers with the business class passenger having a personal virtual waiter, more virtual space and better looking food modeled by top 3D-artists.

The VR food experience will be the only option on all flights starting in November this year.