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S. Korea’s self-driving upstarts take on tech giants

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In a workshop that blends a corporate office with a tool-packed garage, around 20 South Koreans are looking to take on the multi-billion-dollar giants of Uber, Tesla and Google parent Alphabet with a self-driving car of their own.

The RideFlux start-up brings together engineers who have given up well-paid jobs with some of the South’s most prestigious firms to try to build a ride-sharing company for the tech-savvy nation.

Their modified Hyundai Ioniq, festooned with cameras and proximity sensors, is the first autonomous vehicle to go into regular service on public roads in the country.

For two weeks it has been shuttling customers from the airport on the tourist island of Jeju to rental company SoCar’s service centre.

The five-kilometre (three-mile) route includes a U-turn, 11 pedestrian crossings and bustling airport traffic, meaning it is “laden with potential variables” and an “optimal environment” to develop and improve AI systems, says founder and CEO Park Jung-hee, who holds a doctorate from MIT in mechanical engineering.

Rideflux CEO Park Jung-hee plans to offer ride-hailing services using autonomous cars in Jeju by the end of the year. PHOTO: AFP / Ed JONES

With AFP on board, an irritated taxi driver following behind honked as the all-electric vehicle kept to the speed limit, changed lanes and had the vision to accelerate and overtake another car to ensure it had sufficient space to make a right turn.

A giant monitor in the workshop displayed its progress, relayed in real-time, complete with objects around the car and traffic signs.

For now, under South Korean law a safety driver has to sit behind the wheel, poised to intervene if necessary — they do so at least once a day on average — leaving space for two passengers.

But Park, 35, is looking to accelerate, with plans to offer ride-hailing services using three autonomous cars operating on 400 kilometres of Jeju’s major roads by the end of the year — albeit still with a safety driver.

“Our aim is to put self-driving cars without safety drivers operating in all parts of Jeju in the next five years,” he said.

Despite its trade-dependent economy, South Korea sometimes puts regulatory hurdles in the path of multinational companies.

RideFlux investor SoCar, an app-based car rental firm in one of the few countries where Uber has had to give up offering ride-sharing owing to legal restrictions, believes automated driving will be “at the centre of our future business”.

‘Truly safe’

But the newcomers have a mountain to climb. Major automakers, technology tycoons and start-ups have already poured $50 billion into the race to develop autonomous driving technologies over the past five years, according to market observer Research and Markets.

Silicon Valley companies have taken the lead, most notably Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet, which has already logged more than 32 million kilometres on public roads across 25 cities in the US.

It has been operating an autonomous rideshare pilot programme in Arizona, with some of the cars now operating without a human backup, after nearly three years of tests with 600 vehicles using safety drivers.

Under South Korean law a safety driver has to sit at the wheel to intervene if necessary. PHOTO: AFP / Ed JONES

Technology has been a key element of the South’s progress to become the world’s 12th-largest economy, with Samsung Electronics rising to become the world’s biggest smartphone and chip maker, and the government in Seoul is looking to encourage autonomous vehicles as a new driver for growth.

It plans to install intelligent transport systems on all its 5,400 kilometres of motorway by 2024 to enable communication between vehicles and infrastructure.

The works have already been completed on 85 kilometres of highway south of Seoul, according to the transport ministry, feeding information on vehicle movements to driver-assistance systems in real time.

The South was the first country to launch a nationwide 5G network, which will facilitate development in future.

But so far the RideFlux vehicles have covered just 10,000 kilometres in six months.

“We need to collect and accumulate as much data as possible,” Park told AFP, adding careless driving causes more than million road deaths a year globally.

“We need to show people accident-free records accumulated over a long period of time.

“It is the only way people will truly feel safe riding a self-driving car,” he added. “Magic doesn’t just happen.”

Reporting and photos: AFP

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Emirates undertakes largest known fleet retrofit project

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Emirates has kick-started its plans to upgrade the entire interior cabins of 120 Airbus A380 and Boeing 777 aircraft – two of the largest commercial aircraft types in service today.

This ambitious project, representing a multi-billion dollar investment to ensure Emirates’ customers “fly better” for the coming years, officially commences in November and is managed entirely by Emirates’ Engineering team.

The target is to completely retrofit four Emirates aircraft from start to finish every month, continuously for over 2 years. Once the 67 earmarked A380s are refreshed and back in service, 53 777s will undergo their facelift. This will see nearly 4,000 brand new Premium Economy seats installed, 728 First Class suites refurbished and over 5,000 Business Class seats upgraded to a new style and design when the project is complete in April 2025.

In addition, carpets and stairs will be upgraded, and cabin interior panels refreshed with new tones and design motifs including the iconic ghaf trees which are native to the UAE.

No other airline has handled a retrofit of this magnitude in-house, and there’s no blueprint for such an undertaking. Therefore Emirates Engineering teams have been planning and testing extensively, to establish and streamline processes, and identify and address any possible snags.

Trials began on an A380 in July, where experienced engineers literally took each cabin apart piece-by-piece and logged every step. From removing seats and panelling to bolts and screws, every action was tested, timed and mapped out. Potential impediments to completing the installation of Emirates’ new Premium Economy Class or the retrofit of the remaining three cabins in just 16 days were flagged and documented for expert teams to review and address.

As part of the programme, new purpose-built workshops will be set up at Emirates Engineering to repaint, re-trim and re-upholster Business and Economy Class seats with new covers and cushioning. First Class suites will be carefully disassembled and sent to a specialised company to replace the leather, arm rests and other materials.

From the trials, Engineers discovered several unexpected solutions for instance: that existing food catering trucks could be easily repurposed to move parts destined for refurbishment from the aircraft to the workshop for their refresh, as these vehicles had doors of the right width and offer sufficient space.

Until the retrofit programme starts in earnest in November, a cross-disciplinary team has been assembled to regularly review the planning process, address any issues, and track updates on various aspects of the project such as procurement, staffing, and training.

Emirates’ new Premium Economy cabin class, which offers luxurious seats, more legroom, and a service to rival many airlines’ business offering, is currently available to Emirates customers travelling on popular A380 routes to London, Paris, Sydney. More customers will be able to experience the airline’s new Premium Economy cabins starting from year end, as the retrofit programme picks up momentum.

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Eleanor helps over 30 Maldives hotels elevate guest services

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Eleanor has been named as one of the top 10 concierge software providers globally.

Based on accurate, timely reviews from real users, the HotelTechAwards rank the world’s best hotel software firms and products and it also provides hoteliers direct access to a growing network of hotel technology professionals and decision-makers.

“The guest experience is the cornerstone of our platform. Our unified resort wide solution, Eleanor, has been built for resorts off the back of many years working in the industry and addresses the needs of both Sales and Marketing departments and perhaps just as importantly, the operational requirements of the team on the ground at the property. The days of resorts working with disjointed systems are now behind us,” says Darren Caple, co-founder and CEO.

“We are on a mission to make the guest’s resort experience as easy and as frictionless as possible. Whereas traditional providers in the market have come at this purely from a guest communication perspective, our background in resorts has allowed us to combine this basic requirement with the streamlining of operational processes. The result is truly a resort wide solution that removes the need for countless different systems to be deployed.

Eleanor allows resorts to deliver consistent, superior service levels to guests across all stages of their journey with contactless features helping to alleviate sensitive touch-points in the post pandemic period. More than 30 properties in the Maldives use our Eleanor platform to help butlers and guest services elevate the guest experience. These properties are seeing an increase in incremental revenue by over 30% and operational efficiencies of 600+ man hours per month. We are also beginning to roll out the platform in some Caribbean properties!”

Eleanor is making waves in the hospitality industry by pushing the conventional limits of what a resort guest app can achieve through its unique ability to facilitate direct bookings for services and activities. The traditional ‘request to book’ feature that is common amongst almost all other hotel apps is removed by a power booking and operational platform sitting at the heart of the solution that covers all the resorts’ departments. It’s this module which realises enormous operational benefits and insights for the resort.

“We, at Eleanor, are humbled and honoured that our clients have provided such positive reviews. Feedback from our clients, partners and hoteliers are incredibly valuable for us and we will continue to improve our offering and services”, said Caple.

To celebrate this success, Eleanor is currently offering resorts a free one month trial, together with free setup and training and discounted monthly fees.

Eleanor, founded in 2018 and has its headquarters in the United Kingdom. Created from over 15 years of hands-on expertise, Eleanor allows resorts to deliver consistent, superior service levels to its guests across all stages of their journey with contactless features helping to alleviate sensitive touch-points in the post pandemic period. Eleanor also helps to unlock operational efficiencies and boost incremental revenue and guest loyalty.

Hotel Tech Report’s Best Concierge Software 2022 Runner Up, reviewed as a preferred and reliable hotel software product by the global hotelier community.

For more information, visit www.eleanorapp.com.

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Emirates’ recruiters scour the world for cabin crew talent with 30 city stops

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Emirates, the world’s most global airline, is seeking talented people with a passion for service to join its award-winning cabin crew team.

As air travel returns with a vengeance, the airline’s recruiters are busy meeting and hiring candidates in 30 cities from now until the end of June. In this latest drive, Emirates’ teams will travel from Australia to the UK, and dozens of European cities in between, as well as Cairo, Algiers, Tunis and Bahrain.

Abdulaziz Al Ali, Emirates Group’s Executive Vice President for Human Resources said: “There’s no more exciting airline than Emirates for anyone interested in a flying career, and we’ve received tremendous interest since we began our recruitment drive for cabin crew in November.”

“While parts of the application process are done online, we always make the effort to meet our candidates in person whenever we can, and that is why our Talent Acquisition team is doing a whirlwind 30-city tour over the next 6 weeks to assess prospective candidates.”

Emirates’ truly global cabin crew team represent 160 nationalities, reflecting its customer mix and international operations in over 130 cities on six continents.

All Emirates crew are based in the exciting cosmopolitan city of Dubai, with company-provided accommodation, tax-free salary and more benefits.

Interested candidates can read more about the Emirates cabin crew role, and apply online at: https://www.emiratesgroupcareers.com/cabin-crew/

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