Delta Air Lines Bans Flight Attendants From Wearing AI-Powered Smart Glasses

Remember 2017, when the world went crazy for augmented reality wearables meant to transform the way we work? The airline industry briefly explored the tech for flight attendants, but, and I’m sure many people are thankful for this, grand plans to roll out smart glasses were quickly dropped.

It turned out that augmented reality glasses were a short-lived fad, but seven years later, we’re all living with the reality that artifical intelligence really is changing the way we live our lives.

And AI is beginning to make its way into wearables, whether it be through Apple’s space-age Vision Pro goggles or Meta’s much more fashion-forward collab with Ray Ban, with a range of AI-powered glasses.

So far, take-up has been relatively slow, although the future of wearable tech has clearly rattled Delta Air Lines enough to issue a new edict to staff… smart eyewear is expressly prohibited unless it’s been issued by the airline.

At the moment, the Atlanta-based airline hasn’t approved any smart glasses for its staff, so that means flight attendants and all other front-line staff are banned from wearing their own glasses.

While the Apple Vision Pro might stand out from a mile away, to the untrained eye, the Meta Ray Ban collection might just look like any other pair of glasses.

But hidden inside is powerful computer programming and hardware, including a 12 MP ultra-wide camera, able to take photos and videos, along with built-in open ear speakers that can communicate with the wearer via Meta’s AI system.

Delta’s ban came into place only very recently, with a spokesperson for the airline explaining that the decision followed a “continuous evaluation of the landscape to ensure the safety and security of our people and global operation.”

Interestingly, Delta won’t let staffers wear smart glasses unless specifically issued by them, and while that means no smart glasses, for now, it opens up the possibility that Delta could be open to exploring the tech in the future.

During the augmented reality craze of 2017, Air New Zealand said it was actively exploring the possibility of issuing smart glasses to its cabin crew, and while the experiment never got off the ground, the airline did, at least, share some of the features it would want from a wearable.

Air New Zealand wanted its glasses to aggregate and display key customer information at a glance, so a flight attendant might see a frequent flyer’s preferred meal and drinks choice just by looking at them.

The technology could even detect a passenger’s mood and suggest a conversation to strike up with them, or provide de-escalation techniques for someone who is visibly upset.

Several years earlier, Virgin Atlantic had experimented with Google Glass, a very early version of today’s smart glasses that displayed information in a heads-up display.

The aviation industry saw countless possibilities for Google Glass, including in operations, customer services, security, and immigration, although trials were abruptly ended when Google discontinued work on the project in 2015.

Matt’s Take

I’m not aware of any other airline currently banning staffers from wearing smart glasses, but this seems like an appropriate move from Delta, and in many respects, the airline should be lauded for even considering smart wearables as a potential issue.

There are clearly data protection and privacy concerns around these products, especially when you consider that aircrews fly to many different countries where rules around privacy can be very different from those in the United States.

The decision may, though, cause a little consternation among Delta’s flight attendants’ workforce, given that the airline only recently told crew members that they could not stop passengers from taking photos or videos of them.

In an internal memo shared last October, Delta told flight attendants that they can still ask passengers to respect their privacy and avoid including them in photos, but that they “cannot force them to stop, nor may we remove someone from a flight merely because they took a photo or video.”