Unlike railway stations and trains, or even buses, where co-passengers tend to break the ice sooner than later, airports and flights can be cold and lonely if you're not travelling with family members or friends.
And what makes it worse is if you have to catch a flight all by yourself during Christmas, when everyone else is happily bonding.
Man might be a social animal but, in this day of harassment charges that can be levelled freely, wary travellers tend to stick to themselves and not make friends quite as easily as they used to. Mobile phones and e-book readers have, in fact, also aided the isolation of individuals as staring at screens appears to be the favourite pastime of most fliers.
At Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, however, Christmas this year turned out to be different.
The 14th busiest airport of 2015 (as per data released by the Airports Council International, it saw over 58 million passengers go through its terminals last year) is the hub for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and, since Christmas sees a peak in travellers, the airline and its advertising agency DDB & Tribal Amsterdam, decided to run a community experiment.
The brief was simple: instead of being preoccupied with mobile phones or books, what would it take to convince single travellers in this festive season to bond with strangers and create some delightful memories?
And thus, was born the Bonding Buffet.
Like all powerful advertising ideas, at its heart lies simplicity and fundamental human insight. A giant buffet table with a special Christmas dinner was created – except that it towered 4.5 metres above and could not be reached. It sat on a platform that could be lowered only when people began to sit on one of the 20 stools around it. As lonely travellers overcame their shyness one by one, the table began to descend and soon there was bonhomie and food to make Christmas at the airport special.
Here's the video of this potentially award-winning idea (at the time of writing this report, it has been seen over 12.75 million times on YouTube and is going viral all over the world):
KLM's Bonding Buffet was set up just before Christmas and saw 60 travellers from different nationalities in separate sessions. If that doesn't make for a Merry Christmas, nothing will!
