Is this seat taken? Airlines add 'social seating' programs

— -- Ever wonder who your fellow airline passengers are and whether any share your interests and aspirations?

The day has arrived when some of the travelers sitting with you at the airport gate or on the plane don't have to be nameless and unknown. Two airlines, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Malaysia Airlines, are letting passengers share their social-network profiles or photos and pick seatmates before the flight.

KLM's Meet & Seat and Malaysia Airlines' MHbuddy "social-seating" programs can let you see whether other stockbrokers or insurance industry executives will be on the same plane or whether someone is flying to San Francisco to attend the same business meeting.

Or, they allow you to just peruse passengers' social-network profiles to find a potential soul mate.

The social-seating plans, initiated by KLM in January and by Malaysia Airlines last year, are seen as the ultimate social-networking dream by some and an invitation to stalkers and a privacy nightmare by others.

Some cautions are prudent. But others are based on incomplete or false information about the programs.

"Very weird," writes Nora Barry Byrne on KLM's Facebook page. "I totally vote on the creepy. Is the default to opt in or opt out? If I was traveling with my kids/teens or traveling on my own — all I think of is the creeps that would use this to stalk. I would hope they remind passengers each time to opt out if they don't want to be stalked on a flight."

But KLM Meet & Seat, available on flights between Amsterdam and New York, San Francisco and São Paulo, is voluntary.

Passengers book their KLM flight, and then from 90 days to 48 hours before departure, they can access Manage my Booking on the airline's website and choose Meet & Seat if they want to opt in to share their Facebook or LinkedIn profiles with other passengers. You can edit your profile and photo, and thus share only the information that you want to provide other passengers.

The seating map displays the seat choices and Facebook or LinkedIn profiles of other passengers who have decided to participate in Meet & Seat, and you can contact them before the flight and choose to sit next to them if the seat is available.

When additional passengers select the Meet & Seat option and share their social-network profiles, you get an e-mail notification if you are participating in Meet & Seat.

And, if you find before taking off that you're sitting next to someone you don't want to chat with during an eight-hour flight, you can change your seat and even withdraw your social-media profile. Your profile gets deleted after the flight.

"Dozens of passengers have already shared their profile during the first few days," says Ellen van Ginkel, a KLM spokeswoman. "We see an even spread between the … routes, business and economy class, Facebook and LinkedIn, men and women."

Malaysia Airlines' MHbuddy is a Facebook application. Travelers can book their flights using MHbuddy. As they check in on Facebook, they can view the photos and seat selections of any of their Facebook friends on the flight and can choose seats next to them, if available.

MHbuddy also tells passengers if any of their Facebook friends are planning on traveling to the destination in case they want to meet during the trip.