A worker who will never need a sick day has arrived in Auckland Airport - a world-first robot that sorts and delivers duty free goods to travellers.
ACE - Automated Collection Experience - is a white crane-like robot installed at Aelia Duty Free.
Pre-paid duty free orders can be collected
in 30 seconds by scanning a bar code outside the glass-fronted case ACE works in.
ACE's arm then swivels around to open the appropriate drawer in one of the three walls around it, before swivelling back to drop the order, all bagged up, into a drop box for the customer to collect.
"You can now order your duty free goods online and collect them automatically and in-style via ACE," Lagardere Travel Retail manager Ivo Favotto said. "It is completely digital. Our ACE is a world-first for travel retail and the first retail execution of a robot of this kind in New Zealand."
