I hate to say it; but my prediction for the use of this service goes about like this:

Several young, socially connected folks give it a shot.

Horny dudes browse the passenger list looking for a "hot chick" to sit next to.

Girls wise up to what the guys are doing and stop signing up.

Guys do what we always do and lose interest in yet another "social activity" completely devoid of women.

And those individuals will hopefully get honest reviews and their douchebaggary will be known to the world. I highly doubt many people will do this unless they don't care about their reputation, networking, etc.. And besides if they do develop a certain public reputation then no one will want to sit next to them.

I think this idea is absolutely brilliant. It makes me even want to travel more. I love meeting people and have different interests I'd be happy to talk about for hours and hours with someone. You'll either learn new things, make contacts, or be teaching someone whereby you're strengthening your own understanding. It's win-win-win!

Cultures are different enough across the world that this might work somewhere, possibly in Holland since KLM is organizing it.

Very cool idea. The only problem is making sure that the interest is reciprocal. Instead of being able to see where others may be seating, it should show all people on board and allow you to express interest, which then gives the other person the ability to reciprocate. If the other person declines, the declination should be in ambiguous terms so the person declining neither offends or feels obligated, such as "This person has declined because they plan to rest or do work while on this flight"

New hobby: Find the seat that maximizes the distance between me and the nearest person who has shared their Facebook profile with KLM.

What other webapps do people want to write? : )

So people with Facebook profiles are somehow repulsive, while people with HN usernames are implicitly acceptable?

I bet people could use this to break into houses. Given the right person with lax privacy settings. One public facebook event with your address or something and someone who knows you'll be flying.

If someone really wants to break in there are much easier ways..

as a frequent long distance flyer: what an awful idea. flying is not a social experience, it is not a bar.

having someone next to you trying to sell crap - with no physical escape for hours? oh yeah. in other contexts i am walking away.

klm is doing a lot of marketing with social media. they have a pretty famous video on usage of twitter.

If you have no control over who might sit next you you I agree. However imagine if you were flying NYC-SF and could find out who were entrepreneurs, software engineers or designers on you flight and talk shop for a couple of hours.

The key issue is discovering if the interest is mutual. It's not unsolvable. Merely intractable.

personally I agree with you - I would probably be scanning that list for someone who doesn't want to talk, isn't fat and doesn't have a golfball bladder.

However, a friend of mine would probably love this. He's constantly traveling for work and always looking for people to talk to (in his industry/sphere of interests) because it's so boring. There's plenty of travelling salesmen types out there who want this, so why not let them sit together :)

My first thoughts too. Actually what I saw in my head was me sitting beside a couple loud talkers conversing about an industry I don't care about.

It's a bar on Virgin Atlantic :)

Is this from the same people behind the social airport concept that was pitched during the office hours at Techcrunch's conference?

rare jongens die Nederlanders ;)

salesmen will love this, and lonely women.