--- title: Wingman App Wants to Be Tinder Of Air Travel With In-Flight Sex description: Introducing the Tinder of the skies canonical: https://time.com/6157/wingman-app-airline-hookups/ author: Samantha Grossman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-02-10T16:39:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:07:08.378Z og:title: Wingman App Wants to Be Tinder Of Air Travel With In-Flight Sex og:description: Introducing the Tinder of the skies og:url: https://time.com/6157/wingman-app-airline-hookups/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta803dc3c0fe56988/69868281d0b6f20237302ec5/157637641.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4250 og:image:height: 2391 og:image:alt: Man Sits Texting on Airplane og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Wingman App Wants to Be Tinder Of Air Travel With In-Flight Sex twitter:description: Introducing the Tinder of the skies twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta803dc3c0fe56988/69868281d0b6f20237302ec5/157637641.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 'Wingman' App Wants to Help You Join the Mile High Club > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=ca722bda-ee69-4002-95ce-ae28fb0174aa&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1) by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Feb 10, 2014 4:39 PM UTC  Man Sits Texting on Airplane Man Sits Texting on Airplane Getty Images by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Feb 10, 2014 4:39 PM UTC Forget about boring old dating apps like Hinge and Tinder that limit you to sexual encounters at sea level. It’s all about Wingman, a new app that [promises](http://miscellaneousmischief.com/wingman.html) to connect you “with attractive people on your flight, all before you touch down.” It’s still in its beta stage, but its creator, 24-year-old Gabe Whaley, says development is well underway, the _Daily Beast_ [reports](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/10/wingman-an-app-for-hookups-at-30-000-feet-wants-to-be-the-tinder-of-airline-travel.html). It works much like Tinder: users scroll through photos of potential “travel buddies” aboard their flight and swipe right or left to indicate “yes” or “no.” The idea is that most planes nowadays offer in-flight wi-fi, but the app will also be bluetooth-ready. In the meantime, you can [sign up](http://miscellaneousmischief.com/wingman.html) for notifications to stay informed about Wingman’s process. This could actually be a good idea in theory, but we do sense some problems. For one, users will be drawing from a pretty small pool, right? A lot of the people aboard any given flight are children. Or married. And then the other “eligible” bachelors and bachelorettes might simply be opposed to getting it on in a smelly shoe box-sized airplane bathroom with a perfect stranger. Indeed, Whaley seems to realize that the whole concept is a bit far-fetched. “I think it will make people curious, and you never know: someone might use it, and it might start a conversation that they might not have otherwise had,” Whaley[ told](http://animalnewyork.com/2014/tinder-airplanes-app-wants-mile-high-club/) ANIMAL New York. “It could turn out to be really good, or really bad. 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