If you have a flight coming up with Finnair (AY), there might be some good news on the horizon – you might be able to make a few new friends prior to even setting foot in the airport!
AY announced on 3/13 that they have developed, through their partnership with Amadeus, a social check-in feature for their flights. This means that passengers on upcoming AY flights can check-in and link their Facebook profiles to their location on the seat map. Other passengers on the flight can then browse your profile and decide if they’d like to sit next to you or reach out to try to get to know you. See someone who also likes fine dining? Send them a message!
Right off the bat the alarms starting going off in my head. It’s pretty clear the stalker potential of this new system is pretty stellar.
AY’s press release seems to be aware of that concern though, since they take the time to emphasize the following key points of information related to the system:
- The system only show’s the customer’s public Facebook profile, so passengers do not get unrestricted access to everyone’s private information. This means that other passengers can only see information that the customer has already decided to make public.
- Using the service is not mandatory, and customers can simply choose not to use it when checking in.
- AY will allow passengers who have decided to use the feature to disable the linkage at any time (in case you’re getting too many creepy messages perhaps?).
For those brave individuals who do opt in to the service, the system will allow them to publish their flight’s destination and estimated time of arrival onto their profiles in addition to the previously discussed “fellow passenger snooping” benefits.
The feature only works with Facebook currently, though AY’s press release says they will be working on including other social networks in the future.
Overall it seems like an interesting feature though I’m fairly certain I’ve heard of other airlines implementing or considering similar innovations in the past. I’m still on the fence about whether or not I’d opt in to this feature if I were booked on an AY flight.
Image Credit: Finnair
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