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In the past years, Tech has been trying to tackle travels and airways from different sides. We have seen websites that are able to build your perfect holiday in just one click, others that are referring you to the cheapest flight and others to rent accommodations in a foreign country you are visiting. The most successful one is probably SkyScanner, which a decade ago started scanning through every single possible flight available.
Nevertheless no one ever thought about trying to connect the people who were flying on the same plane. It’s so interesting to study the demographic of the people who sorround you and even if you don’t know them, your co-founder, best friend, wife might be flying next to you. This is what Social Airways is trying to solve by making flights more “social”. As they say:
Flights are full of people that have never met and our platform rewards registered travelers by providing a platform connecting travellers.Social Airways is a platform that connects people who are on the same flight, assisting travelers in finding a useful method of utilizing flight time constructively and providing alternative options that will make traveling more social, economical and pleasant.
It’s not true that networking is just for “networking” events. Meeting people is something that should be as normal as it is pronounced and that’s why everything is an excuse for meeting new people, even being on a flight. Social Airways lets you connect with members who are going where you are going and share your itinerary before you depart. As they say you can also manage your trips, matches and personal network (you can have friends on your profile).
Once you join a flight, you get redirected to the flight page. In this section, with a nice well designed boarding pass on top, you can see the registered members, which are on the same flight, and you can start a discussion with all of them. It reminds me the way forums used to communicate but only focused on a specific moment of your life, a flight. Further, you can also add what you are looking for to gain from that flight.
It can be exchanging knowledge, playing a game, having a business talk or even sleep. The aim is to connect people in any possible way. That’s why the company’s aim ” is to revolutionize the way we are traveling, meet people and most important of all make traveling time worth the money and time.”
The company is facing its early days and that’s why they have to keep iterating faster in order to add more flights and more users. If I was travelling to a tech conference from a big city such as London, I would definitely use this platform to find people to network with before going to the event. The question is how big this niche might be.
As most of the tech startups that we know, the early adopters of this platform will be people from the tech community and that’s why the bet is on how far they can push Social Airways. Are non-tech people who are travelling for holidays up for networking on a plane? I think there is a niche even there, but it’s too early to define what it is and what can be.
However Social Airways makes us reflect on the possibilities we have everyday to meet remarkable people. Networking events are for people who want to meet other people from a specific niche, but what if your next co-founder doesn’t even know what that niche is? This happened in the past and we’ll happen in the future. Networking should be a constant process in our lives, even on a flight, because there is always time left to meet new people.
