Flying tends to be an experience one mostly tolerates rather than enjoys – no matter what kind of clothes the flight attendants wear or how nice food they serve on board. Especially when flying solo (excuse the pun).
What if there was a way to get you seated next to someone who has the same interests or even goes to the same city or conference as you? Enter Planely – a Danish startup with a British founder called Nick Martin (surely a rock-star name?)
But what if you find yourself in a situation sitting in a plane wishing to be next to someone you’d rather not? It would be nice to have more control over this important decision wouldn’t it? Enter Planely again – just put your flights into www.planely.com to see who else will be on your plane and in your departure and arrival airports. You can then make arrangements to sit together on the plane, have a coffee on the ground or share a cab home. Joining, like Planely states, the “social flying revolution”.
There are some hidden icebergs of course – the scarce time people have on their hands, why bother signing up on yet another social network and on top of it all, take the time to type in your flight details?
Nick Martin understands that and says that Planely is focused on lowering this barrier to
entry by partnering with various airlines that will enable you to tap into Planely while booking your flight.
In the spring of 2011 Planely also held a competition in order to name the most sociable airline which was won by Cebu Pacific – a low-cost carrier in the Philippines, who are according to Martin “very internet-savvy and incredibly social.”
When asked how is this different from Foursquare, Nick Martin pinpoints out “one crucial difference: “Foursquare and Facebook check-ins are more about where you are now. By knowing your travel itinerary Planely knows your future and gives you time to plan properly.”
In order to start generating some mention-worthy revenue, Planely would have to hit the magic million users threshold. Nick Martin is optimistic: “There were 2,5 billion passengers flying on separate trips last year spending 15 billion hours in the system. That’s a lot of down-time that can be put to having fun instead.”
Want to start your own revolution and create jobs – as according to this New York Times’ article you just may end up saving the economy (and not just in the US). All it takes is to have an idea – HumanIPO can help you with the rest like finding missing team-members, provide mentorship and get you visibility among potential investors. Got your attention now? Signing up will take only some seconds and you are good to go.
