TheHighFlyers helps you join the mile-high chat club

When friends Eli Byers, Chad Fegley, Amrita Chawla, and Mari Lliguicota fly they’re usually bored. They spend a lot of time in the air and they wanted something that would make the miles go by faster.

Their solution? TheHighFlyers.club. This clever Disrupt hackathon hack lets you see when you’re passing cool stuff outside of the plane and even chat with other people on the flight. There is also a Watson-based chatbot that lets you ask questions about your trip and destination.

The hackathon project is live now and isn’t quite ready for prime time, but the team plans on building it out this month and launching a finished version.

“We wanted to change a problem everybody has when they travel,” said Fegley. “When you travel by yourself it’s boring.”

They knew that creating a Slack room for the air probably wouldn’t be enough. So they added features.

“We were also curious to see what’s underneath you. I like looking out the window and seeing awesome stuff,” said Chawla.

The team imagines wine-lovers getting together to talk about wine on a flight to Bordeaux. Byers works at CodingDojo as an instructor and his friends are looking for work.