This Airplane Seat Can Tell If You're Nervous

Sharing your heart rate with the flight crew? Maybe when telepathic cocktail orders become commercially viable. JL

Suzy Strutner reports in Huffington Post:

The FlightBeat app is designed to monitor passenger heart rates using sensors built into their seats. Plane passengers would be able to opt out of sharing their heart rate with flight attendants.
Not everyone feels totally calm on an airplane. And in the future, your seat may be able to tell.
The FlightBeat app is designed to monitor passenger heart rates using sensors built into their seats. The info would then be relayed to flight attendants, who can see if a passenger is stressed or sick and then offer help.


Flaminia Del Conte
Flaminia Del Conte

The concept comes from a partnership between students at Delft University of Technology, KLM flight attendants and Zodiac, a leading aerospace company. As part of a class, students consulted with Zodiac engineer Stefan Berghuijs on how to improve air travel. While there aren't currently plans to install FlightBeat on planes, Berghuijs agrees that their smart plane seat could very well be the  future of flight. 

 

"When you share your emotional status with the cabin crew, they can provide you better service," he told HuffPost.

 

If flight attendants could tell when a passenger was stressed or sick via their heart rate, for example, they could help them calm down or "prevent costly emergency landings caused by those who wait too long before alerting the crew when they are feeling unwell," The Telegraph reports.
According to the app proposal, plane passengers would be able to opt out of sharing their heart rate with flight attendants. Berghuijs thinks privacy concerns will be short-lived.
"Managing your personal health is getting more common and accepted," he said. "People will get more used to this technology over time."
...Now all we need are more free peanuts.