Taiwanese airline plays Cupid with 'speed-dating' flights
Love may actually be in the air this Christmas for some Taiwanese singles after EVA Air, one of the island’s largest carriers, offered speed-dating flights over the holiday season.
The novel idea is the latest twist in a growing trend in Asia of “flights to nowhere” where aircraft take off and land again from the same airport. The journeys are designed to help meet the wanderlust of would-be travellers while regional borders remain closed under strict pandemic measures.
EVA Air is partnering with travel experience company Mobius to arrange three-hour flights for single travellers – the numbers equally divided between men and women - on Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
"When single men and women travel, apart from enjoying the fun in travel, they may wish to meet someone - like a scene in a romantic movie," Chiang Tsung-Wei, the spokesperson for You and Me, the speed dating arm of Mobius, told CNN Travel.
“In addition to gathering participants with enough spending power, it also attracts a group of single people who love travelling. With the same values, it boosts participants' motivation to meet and helps smoothen their conversation from the start."
Each flight seats only 40 passengers and participants have to be university graduates with citizenship in Taiwan. Tickets are restricted to men between 28 and 38 years old and women between 24 and 35.
The airline will attempt to play Cupid by selecting seats by lucky draw for the passengers and assigning them a seat buddy, although if the chemistry is lacking, people may move around the cabin after the seatbelt sign is switched off.
The package – at a cost of $295 – also includes two hours of “romantic date time” on the ground and a “confession session” at the end of the experience when passengers reveal who they would like to see again.
If the romance is missing, passengers can at least enjoy cuisine prepared by Motoke Nakamura, a Michelin-starred chef, and views of the mountain ranges along the east coast of Taiwan and Japan’s Ryukyu islands.
The New Year’s Eve flight starts with a candlelit dinner on the ground before guests board the plane, where they will fly over Taiwan’s cities to count down to 2021.
All 40 spots for the Christmas day flight have sold out already, with 400 people applying for a ticket.
