Delta Air Lines has told flight attendants that they cannot tell passengers to stop taking photos of them following several controversial incidents, including a recent event onboard a Delta flight from Boston to West Palm Beach when a flight attendant was photographed wearing a Palestine flag pin.
The photo of the flight attendant quickly went viral and resulted in Delta quickly amending its grooming and appearance policy to stop employees from wearing any pin badge, with the exception of the US flag pin.
In a new memo titled ‘Our approach to customer photos/videos,’ the airline says that following several recent incidents, “we’ve received a number of requests from employees asking Delta to prohibit photography taken without employee consent.”
Delta says that it had “thoroughly reviewed” its policy on the subject and has come to the conclusion that, in most cases, flight attendants and other customer-facing staff cannot tell passengers to stop photographing or videoing them and that this is not reason in itself to boot someone from a flight.
“We know most customers are well-intended and document their travel experience as a normal and fun part of the journey, and employees do the same when they travel,” the memo explains.
“Delta is a common carrier by air, meaning we are obligated to transport any passenger who pays our fare and agrees to our contract of carriage,” the memo continues. “Common carriers (aircraft, trains, subways, buses, etc.) cannot restrict customer conduct to the same degree that other businesses can, and we cannot implement or institute rules that are inconsistent with laws and regulations.”
After consulting with its legal teams, Delta reviewed the Federal Aviation Regulations and determined that while customers must comply with certain crew member instructions, the FARs do not list photography restrictions as an instruction that flight attendants can impose on passengers.
“You’ve likely seen gyms or other businesses implement a no-photo policy,” the memo explains. “Those private businesses are permitted to implement such policies because they do not operate under the same regulations as airlines.”
There is, however, one important caveat to Delta’s new take on customer photography and the airline says it will continue to support flight attendants “when the content captured is not well intentioned.”
For example, if videos or photos “interfere with the safety and security of flight or if the behavior interferes with the safety or security of employees and customers,” then flight attendants can instruct passengers to stop and could have someone kicked off a flight.
The memo tells flight attendants that, in most cases, they should “focus on de-escalation” and that before they take action, they should “leverage” the support of the ground team or pilots.
Flight attendants will still be permitted to ask passengers to respect their privacy and avoid including them in photos, but Delta has made it clear that they “cannot force them to stop, nor may we remove someone from a flight merely because they took a photo or video.”
At the bottom of Delta’s ‘onboard experience’ page on its website, the airline has quietly added a new note that reads: “We recognize that capturing content is a standard part of customers’ travel experiences.”
“However, capturing content should not interfere with the safety or security of flight, fellow customers or our employees. We ask that you are mindful of including Delta employees in that content, and respectful in your intent.”
“You’ve likely seen gums or other businesses implement a no-photo policy”—surely “gums” should be “gyms”? It took me a while to puzzle this out.
where is the link to the actual memo so we can print it out?
Amazing to see a big airline take a step into preventing cabin crew from power tripping over things like this
I stopped flying Delta period. The wokness of their America hating employees don’t deserve a penny of mine! Or my family
If you only knew how they treat us, too! They are trying to get rid of all of us senior flight attendants for the very stupidest things. It’s so that they can have all these new young people that have all the wokeness and a huge attitude as well! We senior flight attendants made Delta what it was, period! We are now not worth it to them AT ALL! In fact, we are a burden! It is NOT the same Delta! So, I will have to say that I do not blame you!
Working in very close proximity to passengers leaves FAs vulnerable to photos that sexualize them or invade their privacy and personal space. I think Delta should have seen its way to rule that passengers should be allowed to photo or film the events of the trip but should exclude photos of staff and other passengers without prior premission. Also that such permission can be denied without explanation.
I always amazed when corporate imposes rules on their staff and employees that they themselves would not abide while doing their job,
There is an inconvenient thing called the First Amendment. The right to communicate includes reporting and recording things we experience in a public space. Successful attempts to limit this right are overwhelmingly unsuccessful.
Legally speaking, “there is no reasonable expectation of privacy when in public.”
That said, I would argue that context is everything and a photo taken of a FA that appears salacious or could cause humiliation or embarrassment and is published could/should be cause for legal action.
Further, the intent of 1A is to allow written and spoken dissent against the government with no fear of retaliation. Not so sure it applies aboard an aircraft which is owned by a nongovernmental entity.
We do not have a union and we are the only flight attendant group at a major airline that does not have one. We didn’t need one before. But now, we desperately do! They abuse us and are trying to make this job as any other 9 to 5 job, which it definitely is not! They are firing people that are pro-union and the senior flight attendants that made Delta what it was! It is not the same airline and things are going down hill fast as far as moral, trust, lots of racism and discrimination, we are divided, it’s a toxic environment, etc. A great plan to keep us from getting a union and having a True Voice!
I totally disagree. Flight attendants are at WORK. They should not be photographed WORKING. Just like the people who work in offices don’t want STRANGERS taking their picture while WORKING at their desk for 8 hours a day. It’s an invasion of privacy. But, I suppose the airlines enjoy having their employees filmed at work. It’s surveillance for them. Public Spies for the airlines.
It would stand to reason that people who choose to work in positions such as flight attendants or say tour guides that are in constant contact with those traveling would have the forethought to know being photographed by those traveling goes with the territory’s. Any police officer on duty assumes the risk. Flight attendants like to flex authority over every little thing like plane police really shouldn’t try to interfere with the constitutional rights of fare paying passengers who after all would not have their jobs otherwise.
This is BS…..All companies should protect their employees, and have a rule that employees can be photographed ONLY with their consent…everything else is invasion if employee’s privacy…Come on Delta, you can do better.
We should all realize that we are being constantly videoed, unless we are in our homes. You are on video while driving. while shopping, while walking down the sidewalk, at your bank, whole riding a bus, and certainly when walking through an airport. There is no expectation of privacy outside of your home. There is no expectation of privacy in a commercial airliner regardless of whether you’re a passenger or a flight attendant. Expect to be photographed and videoed.
By being a common carrier, the plane is effectively a public space—there aren’t (and can’t be) restrictions on photographing in public spaces (at least while under a US flag). And if Delta hadn’t published this memo, I can pretty much guarantee there’d be some exhausted (probably mistreated on a previous flight) FA that prohibited a family from taking a “first flight” picture or some such. The question of “privacy” that others have mentioned doesn’t exist here. Privacy exists in your home, in a private business, and for separate reasons, in a court room or in a voting booth, not in a public area. I wouldn’t be surprised at some point if the question of taking pictures in a gym isn’t litigated in favor of allowing pictures to be taken (not that I think it is best to do so—it seems a bit weird to even think about that) simply because that is also a space with no expectation of privacy (especially for the gyms with window walls to the exterior—when similar cases have been litigated in the past, at least some of the time, the expectation of privacy is a big part of how the case is decided).
Agree. The First Amendment aggravates and annoys most people at some time but is foundational to our liberties.
I stopped flying Delta period. The wokness of their America hating employees don’t deserve a penny of mine! Or my family
We should all realize that we are being constantly videoed, unless we are in our homes. You are on video while driving. while shopping, while walking down the sidewalk, at your bank, whole riding a bus, and certainly when walking through an airport. There is no expectation of privacy outside of your home. There is no expectation of privacy in a commercial airliner regardless of whether you’re a passenger or a flight attendant. Expect to be photographed and videoed.
The employees just don’t want their potential prospects knowing they work for the airline because they be giving them money for flights when they fly for free!
Please stop taking photos while flight attendants are working.
Those that criticise Delta for allowing this didn’t read the article. Delta have no choice. It’s Federal law. But, I don’t have a problem with Delta asking customers not photographing the crew. That’s a reasonable request.