For those of you who travel regularly by plane, you will know the “joy” of being strapped into your allocated seat for a few hours. You have the smallest possible personal space, and those sitting next to you can be riveting company and fun to be with, or exceptionally dull – unfortunately the later being most common!
This got me thinking…how could we make this journey of travel more interesting and utilize the many creative skills of the passengers who are getting a tad bored?
One possible solution is to invite passengers to participate in an anonymous “chatter” group discussion on a selected brainstorming topic during the flight. To be included, they would press a special “call button” which adds their seat number into the discussion. A Flight Attendant then provides them with an electronic writing tablet that allows communication with the other interested passengers.
Chatter Texts with impressive vocabulary would be then start to quickly permeate through the cabin during the flight, for example:
Seat 12A: “Oh yes, I agree with you, but have you considered….”
Seat 29D: “Thank you 12A, but I think it should be expanded to include…”
Seat 1F: “Interesting concept, particularly if you consider the habitat of the West Australian wombat…”
Etc, etc…
At the conclusion of the flight, those involved could elect to have a copy of the transcript E-mailed to them, just in case there were any creative gems of inspiration written!
To me, this would be a much better use of people’s travel time and would make the total plane experience much more interesting and potentially productive.
Thoughts that might just be useful in the future 
Christy Birmingham
/ July 10, 2013Hehe, that’s an interesting idea. Now, there is always one person that tends to chatter more than the others! 😀
Steven Cramer
/ July 10, 2013Thanks Christy for the feedback….yes, I know what you mean. There might need to be a number filter on a particular seat to ensure that all participants get a fair go!
Sandra
/ July 12, 2013There are airlines that have inbuilt tvs/tablets that get passed out, and you can link with passengers in other seats to play games against one another… potential for sending messages too??? Although that could open a can of worms….
Steven Cramer
/ July 12, 2013Thanks, great feedback…..yes, best to have anonymous worms in the can otherwise it could get a tad interesting!