Originally Posted by FlyingEgghead (Post 28700880)

But there is a "right" way that it could be done: At OP's request, DL theoretically could contact the mystery gentleman and provide him with OP's contact info and brief message ("I was the person seated next to you on this flight; please contact me if you'd like to continue our conversation"), which he would then be free to act on or ignore. This is SOP in any professional situation when someone asks to be put in touch with a third party to whom privacy is owed: The one who seeks to initiate contact is the one whose info is shared.

AFAIK, doing so at OP's request (without revealing anything to OP about the pax) would not violate DL's obligations, so it is "merely" a matter of making it worth DL's while. If OP really wants it, perhaps a business attorney who has airline industry contacts and experience negotiating one-off deals could help. Airlines, like all companies, presumably make lawful private deals all the time if the price is right.

There is some $ offer amount ($100K? $1M?), put in front of the right office at DL, that would have them sit up and take notice of the opportunity to pad the company coffers by humoring OP, assuming that the request is lawful. That is, large enough that they would fear being dinged by their bosses or shareholders for ignoring the revenue opportunity. Unfortunately this is probably more than OP is willing to spend.

Another option is to hire an experienced private investigator to see if there is any chance that more clues can be gathered through public records and voluntary interviews, starting from whatever OP does remember.

Originally Posted by drminn (Post 28706172)

I seem to remember vaguely that for some time KLM was testing a social media app that allowed one to either get in contact with somebody on an flight or chose a seatmate based on some criteria. I think I saw it in a KLM flight magazine. No idea whether that went anywhere and/or is still around.

Originally Posted by Often1 (Post 28705913)

If you are asking whether DL could lawfully offer such a service, I suppose that it could. I am trying to think of something more brand-damaging which a company engaged in one business could do to itself.

Maybe that passenger would be thrilled. Maybe he was traveling to a funeral, cheating on his wife and doesn't want her to know, otherwise had a bad trip and takes the DL outreach the wrong way and switches to a competitor.

I have to presume that the HVC's who are the core of DL's profitability want a safe & clean aircraft piloted by professionals. If they want a confidential dating service, they can sign up for that.

Originally Posted by FlyingEgghead (Post 28700880)

But there is a "right" way that it could be done: At OP's request, DL theoretically could contact the mystery gentleman and provide him with OP's contact info and brief message ("I was the person seated next to you on this flight; please contact me if you'd like to continue our conversation"), which he would then be free to act on or ignore. This is SOP in any professional situation when someone asks to be put in touch with a third party to whom privacy is owed: The one who seeks to initiate contact is the one whose info is shared.

AFAIK, doing so at OP's request (without revealing anything to OP about the pax) would not violate DL's obligations, so it is "merely" a matter of making it worth DL's while. If OP really wants it, perhaps a business attorney who has airline industry contacts and experience negotiating one-off deals could help. Airlines, like all companies, presumably make lawful private deals all the time if the price is right.

There is some $ offer amount ($100K? $1M?), put in front of the right office at DL, that would have them sit up and take notice of the opportunity to pad the company coffers by humoring OP, assuming that the request is lawful. That is, large enough that they would fear being dinged by their bosses or shareholders for ignoring the revenue opportunity. Unfortunately this is probably more than OP is willing to spend.

Another option is to hire an experienced private investigator to see if there is any chance that more clues can be gathered through public records and voluntary interviews, starting from whatever OP does remember.

Originally Posted by LondonElite (Post 28707497)

They're trying to run an airline, not be Tinder v2.

Originally Posted by FlyingEgghead (Post 28704863)

I'd say there's some strange Serendipity or Synchronicity right here -- you're posting to a 3-year-old thread just 2 days after a new thread was started in this same forum on the same topic. :) The answers there might be of interest:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/infor...ne-flight.html

Originally Posted by FlyingEgghead (Post 28707156)

Indeed, these are reasons DL might reject a deal. There is a limit, though: For $19B, one can buy a controlling stake in Delta Air Lines, Inc., and get what one wants. So it's just a question of how much the price can come down from there. :)

Everyone else here just said "no, can't be done", so I wrote what I might constructively attempt as a way to get in touch with the pax if my life depended on it.

I don't know that receiving an unexpected communication from an airline is all that brand-damaging. A pax has to have a way (e.g., email) to be notified about the reservation in the first place, and sometimes there are follow-up surveys, so if the flight itself is a "secret" the pax has to consider that.

Originally Posted by Giggleswick (Post 28708124)

Or Stalker v2.
I'd be pretty creeped out if an airline contacted me about this kind of thing.