With increased security and decreased in-flight amenities, what solo flier wouldn't mind unplugging the iPod and talking to the person next to you, knowing ahead of time that you actually have something in common?
"How many times have you been sitting on a flight and do you hear the theme to Jaws in your head as people walk down the aisle?" asks Peter Shankman, creator of AirTroductions (www.airtroductions.com), the online introduction service that seeks to maximize your airtime.
Fear and loathing on the way to Las Vegas aside, Shankman says, "the goal of the site is to prevent that psychological hell that happens when you're sitting within two inches of someone you've never met before." And so, logic dictates, if people "hit it off, get married and have babies, that's great!" His mission, though, is not to serve as yenta of the skies; it's more about "how to make your flight a little bit better," he says.
A lifelong New Yorker with a background in public relations and marketing (www.geekfactory.com), Shankman started the company in October 2005, borne out of too much time in the air--he clocks 150,000 miles a year--and too little enjoyment. He credits a flight from Houston to New York in 2002 as the inspiration, when he was seated next to then-Miss Texas. "It was a four hour flight that felt like fifteen minutes, and I've been on some 45-minute flights that have felt like eight hours!" he says.
It's free to register, which you do by creating a profile, complete with a description of yourself, preferred airport, photo and your response to the prompt "I'm more comfortable with¿" by checking off any number of choices such as Prada, Vodka Martini, The Emergency Exit Row, the W Hotel, Diet Soda, First Class, the Vegetarian Meal, etc. Enter your itinerary, and click on "AirTroduce Me!" to search for other travelers who share some of your preferences and are scheduled for that same flight. If you find an intriguing profile, you can send an email through the site for $5 (or $19.95 per month) and request a pre-flight meeting, say, "at the Starbucks by gate 2," says Shankman. Or if you are saddled with a ten-hour layover, you can arrange a meeting with someone who is stuck at the airport, too and commiserate over cocktails. He says if your flight isn't sold out, it's not hard to get your seat assigned together by asking the gate agent, but if it is, some tricky maneuvering, i.e., offering your aisle seat to a middle seat person, next to your new friend, often works.
To that end, people have used AirTroductions for business and romantic prospects and just to "meet new people" he says. After it was recently featured on Lisa Loeb's new reality dating show #1 Single on VH1, he was flooded with new members. "I was away from my computer for three hours and received over 700 emails," he says. And a recent segment on Good Morning America followed two people as they were "airtroduced." Currently, there are over 7,000 registered travelers and he reports about "200 matches."
Right now, the site boasts over 7,000 registered users in over fifty countries, including Russia, Uruguay, Italy, Great Britain and the Caribbean. For now, the most popular routes include New York-LA, New York-London, Los Angeles-Sydney, New York-Tokyo, says Shankman, and users run the gamut from age 18 to 78, geographical locations (Russia, the Caribbean and Uruguay), and sexual orientation.
He knows the service's capabilities well--the 33-year-old is single and is "dating a lot" and has used it "a number of times--I like to meet new people." But AirTroductions has more practical applications, such as splitting transportation costs. Shankman tells a story about how he sat on a plane next to a guy and took a taxi to his apartment, only to see the same guy pull up right behind him and get out of a taxi, too. "He lived on the floor below me. We could have saved 30 bucks," he says.
If there's any doubt about whether this service is working, consider this: During the course of writing this story, over thirty people were added to the tally of registered travelers.
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