Vienna Airport uses virtual reality from Draxon to train ground handling staff for work on the ramp. Johannes Smejkal, the airport's Senior Director Ground Handling Services, compares it to pilot simulators: it lets staff rehearse the failures everyone hopes never happen.
Smejkal says the airport's expectations were more than fulfilled, and that he did not expect Draxon to develop this much, at this quality, in so short a time.
How the training works
Draxon describes a library of IATA-standard modules, covering belt loaders, pushback, GPU and headset communication. Each module launches from the headset. Draxon says it ships pre-configured Meta Quest headsets and manages updates and devices remotely. That description is general to Draxon's product rather than specific to Vienna.
Scale and standardisation
Draxon reported in August 2026 that its platform is under contract at 10 airports in German-speaking countries, Vienna among them. Draxon's CEO, Paul Schwarzenholz, says trainees in Frankfurt and Vienna now learn the same procedures in the same order, to the same standard.
