Just weeks after introducing its social-media-oriented Meet & Seat on three intercontinental routes, KLM now is expanding the program to 10 additional routes, and saying business travelers have been the most active users.
With Meet & Seat, passengers can link their edited Facebook and LinkedIn profiles and photos to their booking, view the social media profiles of others who have opted in, and pick seat mates before their flights.
The original three routes were between Amsterdam and New York, San Francisco and Sao Paulo, and a KLM spokesperson says about 200 passengers have used Meet & Seat so far.
“The new service was developed in cooperation with our customers," says Erik Varwijk, managing director, KLM. "Following its success during the first month, we’re seeing a demand for the service on new routes. Meet & Seat is primarily used by business travelers for networking. The ten new destinations lend themselves perfectly for this.”
The 10 new routes are between Amsterdam and Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Atlanta, Houston, Los Angeles, Toronto, Johannesburg, Cape Town and Nairobi.
KLM indeed is positioning the service for business travelers, and depicts in the following video the airline posted on YouTube how they might network before, during and after the trip.
Malaysia Airlines has a similar program called MH Buddy.
Both programs have been met with a lot of skepticism in social media, although apparently some business travelers have been finding them beneficial.
Is it surprising that business travelers are leading the way in KLM Meet & Seat? While business travelers aren't necessarily immediately associated with social media, they have certainly been early adopters of a variety of new solutions, including smartphones.