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Introducing Flymigo – Don’t fly alone…again!!

By Abhijit Bhiku Gaikwad on 13 Comments / 1744 views

              Air travel bring memories, some good incidents which you remember for the rest of your life and some bad experiences which we prefer to forget as soon as possible.. Recently, I was at the Mumbai airport going to Sydney for the first time. I was excited to visit Sydney but the 16 hours flight was the most worrying factor. I reached at the airport 2.5  hours before the flight. And guess what? At 9:00 PM the airport was as crowded as Time’s Square on New Year ’s Eve. Tons of families and friends were bidding farewell to their loved ones. Indian airport is a great place to capture emotions, happy first-time abroad travelers, excited kids, tensed parents, proud uncles, funny friends.

                Anyways, somehow I managed to reach inside  the terminal, located checking area of Qantas Airways. I almost spent 20 minutes at check-in, another 20 minutes at immigration and a lot longer at security clearance. Finally I reached at the most boring part of the airport, the waiting Lounge.  Almost waiting for another 30 minutes I was able to board the plane. My seat was the middleone.. During the flight I tried to communicate with my fellow passengers but  very soon I realized that they were not interested in chit chat.. I spent 16 hours on the plane bored without a book, playing games on phone (soon the battery died!) and not uttering a single word.  When I reached Sydney Airport baggage carousel, I met another solo traveler, bored as he had little more than nothing to talk to a lady traveling with a child sitting next to him during the flight. I wish I had met him sooner

                After returning from Sydney I thought what went wrong with my trip, how could I improve my next air trips, what can be done here for me as well as for other passengers… So I started to match all dots, started to shake my head and the rusty tube light of brain finally lit. And the solution was fairly simple.

                The entire journey I was flying with unknown masses. The flying experience could have been totally different if I was flying with friendsor if I knew these people. From entering the Mumbai airport to reaching Sydney I came across hundreds of people and had eye contact with almost  many of them but they were all aliens to me.. The only thing I needed was a connection with fellow passengers, a medium which could connect all the passengers traveling in same flight way before their travel date. That’s all! Yes that’s all!

                Right away I called my two friends to explain the situation and the solution.  We three tech-monkeys agreed to build a platform to connect passengers traveling in a same flight. And “flymigo” was  born…

                Flymigo, an app which lets you connect people flying in the same flight. You can chat with passengers as soon as you book your flight. You will have an option to see passengers profile before you can start the conversation. You can share travel details with your friends or family members just by a click. You can also get important flight updates.

Flymigo a friendly way of travelling

Currently we are still in the process of building application and making it ready for iphone/android app marketplace. Meanwhile you can like our facebook page (https://facebook.com/flymigo) or follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/myflymigo)

Watch our promotional Youtube video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoaqJml_Afc

I am looking forward to your reviews and comments

 

 

Following is a screenshot of our app.

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13 Comments

  1. hi abhijit,

    interesting concept…!

    have you heard of KLM’s initiative – “meet & seat” – vishal mehra posted this here – https://www.therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/what-stops-a-top-brand-like-klm-to-promote-their-unique-social

    do check it out…

    all the best!

  2. few pointers:

    How do you ensure Safety? By using the service, your are telling the WORLD that:

    a) you are travelling alone
    b) where you are going etc 

    Will single women feel comfortable?

    Also, men WILL get propositions by all kinds of escort services etc – I have blogged about how an escort service follows my tweets and sends me updates whenever I travel 🙁

    Not sure…

  3. It is kind of a new concept and there are chances of getting stalked. But I’m sure the founders must have thought something about the privacy and the different levels of it. If not, this might be a good time to consider some tweaks here and there.

  4. Hmm,this can be interesting..few things coming to mind keeping in mind the context – 

    1. This is like adding a social element to traveling alone.

    2. Since its in the conception stage how its executed is important. Whether one has to input all details or whether once we enter the PNR, all details will be fetched. Yeah this will require the airlines coming into play.

    3. Needless to say security/privacy would be a huge factor here. Stalking is a factor, but then I am assuming people who want to be found will be using this in the first place. But again what one expects and what happens can be quite different. As Alok mentioned his experience and also single women/girls will be stalked like crazy!

    4. You may want do a “User Persona” of various type of travelers. Business, personal, leisure, people who travel for a living (journalist) and so on. This would give you a better idea who may likely want some company and can be a user of your app.

    5. Usually when one is traveling on a long flight like you did, 16 hour, people usually prep themselves up with books or music or movies…if one is not interested in either then it just doesn’t matter to them. I mean how much can one person talk to a stranger. There are exceptions, but you get the drift.

    6. Foursquare does this in a similar way that it shows who all are present in the location you have “checked-in”.

    7. Its far-fetched but if Airlines push such ideas it can gain a lot more traction. Its all about making one’s flying experience more memorable/less boring. So you can speak to a few Airlines and see if they are willing to give a try to what you have in mind.

    8. Nowadays people anyway update their Locations on FB/Twitter/Foursquare quite often…so location per-se is not an issue from my perspective.

    Its too early to validate this…but I see no harm in trying this out…worst case people wont like it, big deal, but at-least you tried. And if people do like it…then…well you know the answer! 🙂

    Good luck!

  5. I feel it’s too niche a product.  I remember Singapore Airlines (15 years ago) had in-flight systems to meet people and play games with others in the plane – nobody was in them ; I dont think people want to engage with strangers as much as you’d like to believe.

    The most talking I’ve seen happening on long haul flights has been around the ‘pantry’ and the loos – conversations typically take off from there.

    Extend the concept to events – perhaps for exhibitions, flights, events, dinners ; you’d open up your pool of users.

  6. Seen many people using https://highlig.ht/ at airport.

    What it does? It notifies you about friends and friends of friends near to your location, based on distance and social graph (likes etc?)

    Nice concept.

  7. Hi,

    Nice concept, but too early to validate. People usually prefer their space while flying.

    Not sure if you have finalized the logo or not, but maybe the logo can be played around with a bit more.

    Best,

    Prashant

  8. Alok,

    I appreciate your response.

    a) You are not telling the World anything. Your info is only shared with people flying with you in that particular flight. Every individual will have an option to disclose his/her info first in order to view others, nobody is forced. 🙂 You can mark your trip private and become invisible from rest of the passengers until you board the flight.

    b) Single women will feel more comfortable because now they have great chance of meeting other single women. Traveler will have an option to filter down visibility with passengers by matching area of interest.

    Twitter is widely open for escort services to track you down but here we are securing travelers info from rest of the World by making it visible to passengers flying together in a flight. 

    #flymigo

  9. Asha,

    Thanks for sharing KLM’s information. Yes, we have heard them and some other airlines trying multiple things recently but we are focusing at much bigger level by targeting all airlines Worldwide.

    #flymigo

  10. Anirudh,

    You are correct about “user Persona.” The whole idea is to connect people of similar interest together. Chit chat is just one way of looking at it, think about two students going for an exam or women traveling with infants and the list grows as you have mentioned.

    On security part I have replied to Alok.

    I really appreciate your view on this. And hey, at least we are trying, well said. 🙂

    #flymigo

  11. Mahesh,

    Thanks for sharing your opinion. The concept of events is on our roadmap for v2 release. 

    #flymigo

  12. Therein lies the point – extroverts, and people like Alok, dont require apps to talk to strangers.  

    I say it’s niche because, I am unsure if >75% of people (your market), want to meet new people on a flight.  If your product can capture and address that, then you have a good thing going,

    I may be wrong – is there a survey you can run ?  

    How do you also execute on the intent to meet – i.e. my seat could be many rows behind ?  

    Could you white label your solution for airlines to use as an app, for their customers?  Reminders, meet others, be a concierge pre- & post- flight?  Opt-in to meet others in flight.

    Abhijit, my comments are all armchair feedback – you are the one doing the slogging.

  13. hi abhijit/amol,

    how’s the work-in-progress?!

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