A Blind Date on Every Flight? KLM Rumored To Launch ‘Social Seating’
Rumor has it that KLM is working on an awesome new service to make flying solo a much more social experience—social seating! The Dutch airline is reportedly developing a service that will allow travelers to find the perfect seatmate on a flight, based on their social media profile.
Rumor has it that KLM is working on an awesome new service to make flying solo a much more social experience—social seating! The Dutch airline is reportedly developing a service that will allow travelers to find the perfect seatmate on a flight, based on their social media profile.
With Social Seating, spontaneous business meetings and networking, first dates and friendly conversation could become commonplace on KLM flights. Pretty cool, right? Dutch Daily News reports, “Passengers will be able to link to their social media accounts, such as LinkedIn, and select a fellow passenger with similarities. The ‘social seating’ feature could potentially lead to networking opportunities for business people, according to the airline.”
Social Seating, which has not been announced officially as of yet but has been discussed by a top KLM executive at a conference, could launch as early as the beginning of 2012. It will be interesting to see how it works. Will both parties have to approve the seating arrangements? How many people will actually use the service?
It’s no surprise that KLM is slated to be the first airline to offer such a service. They’ve been on top of social media awesomeness for some time now. They’ve done everything from stalk passengers through social media and buy them gifts to put fans faces on a plane (including mine!), and even hosted a Guinness World Record-breaking in flight dance party inspired by Twitter. Social seating would be the cherry on top of KLM’s already very social cake.
Of course, there is always the chance that you’ll get paired up with someone who is, well, not everything their social profile was cracked up to be (i.e. Elaine Benes and Vegetable Lasagna). But that’s just a risk flyers are going to have to take.
What do you think of the idea of social seating? Would you take advantage of a service like this to find your perfect airplane seatmate?
Megan O’Neill is the resident web video enthusiast here at Social Times. Megan covers everything from the latest viral videos to online video news and tips, and has a passion for bizarre, original and revolutionary content and ideas.
