Qantas customers will always have their travel plans at hand with the launch of the airline’s popular app on the new Apple Watch when it went on sale in Australia last month.
Using the app, customers will receive notifications telling them of gate changes, what carousel from which to collect their baggage and up to the minute information of their journey.Qantas is one of the first Australian companies to be Apple Watch ready ahead of the sale of the devices.Qantas executive manager of customer and commercial Steve Limbrick said the airline was committed to using technology to enhance the customer experience.'Our customers tell us they love the Qantas app for its efficiency and convenience and the smooth check-in process it enables. The Qantas app for Apple Watch is the next step in making our customer’s journey even smoother and more efficient,' he says.'If a customer’s phone is in their pocket or carry-on luggage, any notifications that would have been sent to the Qantas app on their smartphone will also be displayed on their Apple Watch.'Other functionality in the watch app includes a summary of the customer’s next trip, real time updates about flight schedule, departure gate, and boarding time, time-zones of both departure and arrival destinations while in the air, waiting time in transit airports and lounges available, frequent flyer account summary, and baggage carousel information.'We are very excited to be adding this new technology to the other innovations we have recently launched such as auto check in, which allows customers on our domestic services to check in for their flight via SMS in just three clicks.'***************************************************************************************************************************Watch this translation!InterContinental Hotels Group’s (IHG) Translator App will be available for Apple Watch, giving travellers access to on-demand translations virtually anywhere in the world. The app allows users to ‘travel like a local’, whatever their choice of device. By speaking directly into the watch, or selecting from a range of pre-loaded common phrases, travellers will be able to translate from English into 12 different languages, in real-time, meaning the app will cover the nine initial launch countries for Apple Watch. Translations will appear instantly on the screen of the device in the chosen language, giving users the chance to read the word or phrase, with the help of phonetic spelling. Formal, casual and slang settings will also be available. Available languages on the app currently are Castilian Spanish, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai.***************************************************************************************************************************