Wingmate

How it works

Three rules, enforced on the server.

Not settings you can forget to turn on, and not something the screen politely declines to draw. One function decides what any passenger may know about another, and every route that returns a person goes through it — so a route cannot leak a face or a seat by accident.

The rules

What the app will not do.

01

Mutual reveal, always

A photo appears when you have both revealed to each other. Until then it is not hidden with a blur — the server never sends it to the other phone. You have an hour to take a reveal back.

02

Seat numbers stay private

Your seat is withheld until the reveal is mutual: empty in the response, not covered up on screen. And you only appear to people who want at least one of the same things you do.

03

Nothing outlives the trip

Your check-in deletes itself an hour after boarding, the trip goes within two hours of landing, and a chat survives only if you both ask to keep it.

Two passenger cards. On the left the photo and seat are withheld; on the right both are revealed. A dashed line joins them, marked mutual reveal.PASSENGER · HEATHROW T5Not yet.SEATHIDDEN •••WHY THEY’RE HEREMUTUAL REVEALOR NOTHINGPASSENGER · HEATHROW T5NoorSEAT14A · WINDOWWHY THEY’RE HEREFlying to see family. Would rather tradetravel horror stories than scroll foranother hour.
Mutual reveal — the one rule everything else follows from

Your card

Say one real thing.

Your profile opens with “Who am I” — a few lines in your own words, with your first name and age. Under it go up to three talking points, the countries you have visited, your favourites and the languages you speak. Up to three photos, which nobody sees before a mutual reveal.

“Two weeks off-grid in the Alentejo. I want one good coffee and one good conversation before the wifi dies.” That is the whole pitch. Someone can like that one card and add a comment, and the conversation starts from something you already have in common.

Who you see

Only people after the same thing.

You pick what you are open to, and you appear to travellers who picked at least one of the same. “Something romantic” is optional and can be removed at any time.

Travel friends

Company for the wait, nothing more implied.

Something romantic

Open to a spark, no pressure if not.

Work talk

Same industry, same lounge, might as well.

Language swap

Practise before you land.

Practical help

Share a cab, split a lounge, watch a bag.

Together

Or meet a few people at once.

The Community tab makes a small group out of people in your terminal — open to anyone checked in, or private with a friend and an invite link. Up to six people, first names only, faces still behind a mutual reveal, and the group erases itself when your check-in does.

The same tab gathers people flying around your time to share a car to the airport — four seats, or five in an XL — and collects what travellers say the security queue is doing. Those waits are estimates from other passengers, not a live airport feed, so leave yourself time.

Signing in

No passwords, no identity check.

Sign in with Google, or with your email address — Wingmate sends a four-digit code. Apple sign-in is not switched on yet. You have to be 18 or over, and the app runs in English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian and French.

Nobody is identity-verified. Wingmate does not check identities or backgrounds. Meet in a busy public place, keep your belongings with you, and block or report anyone who makes you uncomfortable.
Read the safety tips