Skip to content
Go to Home Page
News

Delta to Introduce Face-Scanning Baggage Drop

Brendan Dorsey
Brendan Dorsey
Contributor
Born and raised in Northern California, schooled in our Nation's capital, and currently working in the greatest city in the world - NYC. I was instantly hooked to traveling the second I stepped foot in Europe. The addiction only grew once I found out I could do it for free, all on points and miles. I could also eat bagels for every meal.
May 15, 2017
•
2 min read
delta bag drop
Delta to Introduce Face-Scanning Baggage Drop
The cards we feature here are from partners who compensate us when you are approved through our site, and this may impact how or where these products appear. We don’t cover all available credit cards, but our analysis, reviews, and opinions are entirely from our editorial team. Terms apply to the offers listed on this page. Please view our advertising policy and product review methodology for more information.
Daily Newsletter
Reward your inbox with the TPG Daily newsletter
Join over 700,000 readers for breaking news, in-depth guides and exclusive deals from TPG’s experts

Delta has announced that facial recognition technology is making its way to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport this summer. The airline will be introducing four self-service bag drop machines, one of which will include technology that confirms the traveler's identity by matching a picture of their face with their passport photo.

Delta hopes the new feature will save customers time and free up Delta agents to "seek out travelers and deliver more proactive and thoughtful customer service."

It's the first technology of its kind used by any of the US airlines and comes on the heels of Delta introducing a baggage-tracking system allowing customers to see where their luggage is all the way from the plane to the carousel. Tokyo's Narita airport unveiled a similar self-service bag drop machine in March, but the device did not include a biometric feature like Delta's.

The machine in Tokyo is said to shorten the time to check a bag by 2-3 minutes, and other studies have shown that self-service baggage drops have the potential to process twice as many customers per hour.

Delta said the kiosks cost $600,000 and are currently in trial mode. The airline plans on collecting customer feedback before introducing the technology elsewhere.