SeatBuddy: Matchmaking for Fliers?

It’s like the Murphy’s Law of flying — you want to settle in with a good book or take a nap on your long-haul flight, but the person next to you won’t stop gabbing. Or maybe you’re the chatty one, looking for someone to swap travel tales with, but your seatmate is a total snooze.

Well, that may no longer be the case if you’re flying with Air Baltic. The Latvian carrier has recently launched what is said to be the “World’s First Airline Social Seating System” with its new social flight pairing’ program SeatBuddy, powered by Satisfly, on some of its flights, which allows passengers to select their “flight mood.” You can select your mood as “work,” “business talk” or “relax” and SeatBuddy will pair you with someone whose mood matches your own.

Intelligent Seating? The latest trend in air travel has ‘social seating’ filling up the aisles, with airlines like Air Baltic and KLM using social media to match passengers with their ideal seatmate—and maybe even a love connection.

But as it turns out, Air Baltic is not the only airline carrier that’s been flirting with the idea of playing seatmate matchmaker. Malaysian Airlines is said to be considering a Facebook social fight pairing service that allows passengers to check if they have friends visiting the same destination.

 
And last year, Netherlands-based KLM introduced a ‘Meet and Seat‘ program that lets you pick your perfect seatmate based on their Facebook and LinkedIn profiles. It could be brilliant — or painful. If you match well, it could be a great way to meet a new friend (or make a new love connection). But if it turns out your choice is a mismatch, it could feel like an awkward blind date at 30,000 feet—and this time you can’t have your friend call you with an “emergency” to bail you out.

What do YOU think? Would you use a seatmate matching program?