London - Plastic features, fixed grin and a flurry of excitement at Los Angeles airport. But this was not some Botox-infused celebrity making their way to a seat in first class.
The passenger in question was Athena, who has become the first humanoid robot to have a paid-for seat on a commercial flight.
The robot even had its own passport and had to go through the same check-in and security procedures as the human passengers boarding a Lufthansa flight from Los Angeles to Frankfurt. Athena is the creation of PhD student Alexander Herzog and his colleague Jeannette Bohg.
The pair are taking it to the Max Planck Institute for Computational Learning and Motor Control Laboratory in Germany to programme it how to walk.
Mr Herzog pushed Athena through the Tom Bradley International Terminal in a wheelchair, followed by TV crews, past hordes of intrigued passengers.
Athena was then strapped into a seat between Mr Herzog and his colleague for the flight to Germany. - Daily Mail