Airport Experience® News - Food & Beverage Issue 2026

and more – and respond in more than 80 languages. Not every holographic experiment has landed as smoothly, however. Jacksonville International Airport (JAX) briefly deployed a holographic greeter that became a political flashpoint when public officials criticized the expenditure. The hologram was pulled when its pilot period ended and the controversy made renewal difficult, a reminder that airports benefit from building a clear public case for what these programs deliver to passengers before the first device powers on. Robots On The Floor Beyond holograms, some airports are turning to robots to enhance the passenger journey. At Tokyo’s Narita International Airport (NRT), a cat-like robot called Pickru has taken over souvenir sales in Terminal 3’s domestic boarding gate area. Travelers select snacks on a touch panel, pay, and then watch as the robot retrieves their order using a suction-equipped tail and delivers it to a pickup point, a small spectacle that turns a routine airport purchase into something worth telling people about. The store carries 12 popular snack souvenirs, and the format keeps the interaction simple and fast, which is exactly what a traveler with one eye on the departure board needs. Silicon Valley has built its reputation on human-centered technology, and San José Mineta International Airport (SJC) is leaning into that identity. The airport’s humanoid robot, José, has been fielding passenger questions as part of a four month pilot program, answering in more than 50 languages, providing real-time wayfinding help and sharing information about the airport and the city. Mookie Patel, director of aviation at SJC, sees José as a natural fit for a region that defines itself by innovation. “José provides real-time, conversational support that adapts to each traveler’s needs,” Patel said. “Unlike a static

kiosk or an app with pre-programmed responses, José can answer follow-up questions, switch languages instantly and personalize the interaction.” Employees were early converts. José holds an official airport badge and a personalized SJC outfit. Before his public debut, employees tested him across Spanish, Korean, French, Italian, Portuguese and Romanian. SJC has been here before. In 2016, the airport introduced Norma, Amelia and Piper, touchscreen-equipped robots that helped travelers locate gates and restaurants. José represents a significant leap in that lineage, with the conversational depth and multilingual range that earlier models could only hint at. The Five-Year View Nussbaum is measured about the trajectory. In the near future, he expects holograms to be a more common fixture in terminals but predicts that familiarity

Above: José, San José Mineta International Airport’s humanoid robot, can field questions, provide real-time wayfinding help and share information about the airport and the city, answering in more than 50 languages.

will eventually shift how travelers relate to them. Passengers might treat them the way they treat a magnet on a refrigerator, he said. “Right when you get the magnet, you notice it every time you open the door. But after a while, it just starts becoming the scenery.” The same trajectory is likely playing out on the robotics side, where José and Pickru are already normalizing interactions that might have seemed implausible a decade ago. That may be the clearest sign that the technology has done its job, and the airports are one step further in the goal of enhancing and elevating the passenger experience.

43

AX NEWS JULY/AUGUST 2026