Romance in the skies is fraught with peril – you already know the food is going to be inedible, and if you don’t have sparks with your seat mate, you’re pretty much stuck for the ride. But, in an attempt to conjure up love out of thin air (and at certain altitudes, very thin air), KLM started their ‘meet and seat’ which meant passengers could look up on Facebook and LinkedIn and pick who they were going to sit next to – like an up in the air blind date. Last year, Jet2 ran a 'love is in the air' event where they flew 100 singletons to Paris for a marathon date.
The latest airborne matchmaking attempt comes by way of the ‘world’s highest speed date’ organised by Expedia and dating site Doing Something, which surely is ambitious considering the whole attraction of speed dating is that you can slink off if you end up in a room of undesirables.
The event, featuring 60 singletons, took place at 35,000 feet in the air, and departed from Luton airport (why are you laughing - surely that's where everyone would like to start their first date?) to Venice (that’s more like it).
While talking to participant Eleanor Berg, 28, Information Rights Advisor from London, she said that having travel in common helped break the ice. “I met a few people and we’re thinking of having a little reunion. I’ve never done speed dating before and it’s something that’s exciting and that I can take away for future dates and share with other people.”
Expedia’s research also found that travel is key to attracting the perfect partner; so much so that one in ten people are prepared to lie about the places they have been to impress Mr or Mrs Right. This may be because a quarter of us admit to being turned off someone due to the lack of travel experience. A fifth of us cited this as the biggest turn off when looking at online dating profiles and a third of Brits being positively attracted to someone based on their travels.
The experience was coined a ‘holidate’ and Expedia are thinking of running further events in the future.
Would you give it a go?