AirMates is built on a fair exchange. Share your location and you can see your friends on the live map. Step out completely and the live map steps back too.
AirMates collects only what's needed to run the features you use. Your location is sent only when you have sharing turned on. On the native iPhone app, when sharing is on, AirMates uses lightweight background location signals to keep your airport label fresh for friends even when the app is not open. This does not involve continuous GPS tracking. On the web version, location is checked when you open the app or tap to refresh.
Where required by law, we rely on your consent to provide the features you choose to use (such as location sharing, push notifications, and the newsletter), and on legitimate interests to keep the service secure, operational, and free from abuse. You can withdraw consent at any time by turning the relevant feature off, by deleting your account, or by contacting us.
We do not currently run advertising on AirMates, and we do not sell or rent your personal data. We do not use third-party behavioural-tracking analytics. If we ever introduce advertising, sponsored placements, or analytics in the future, we will tell you in advance, update this policy, and where required by law give you a clear choice.
We do not keep a history of your past locations or previous activity beyond what is needed for the current feature to work. Once a piece of data is no longer needed, it is deleted.
Account data: the name, username, avatar, and email associated with your sign-in.
Connections: the list of friends you choose to connect with.
Sharing data: your most recent shared airport, whether sharing is currently on, and any destination airport you set with Heading To. A Heading To destination is visible to the same friends who can see your live sharing. It clears automatically after about 48 hours, on the same schedule as your last shared airport, and you can clear it sooner from the destination pill at any time.
Settings: your preferences (notifications, sharing defaults, newsletter opt-in if any).
Operational logs: minimal server logs needed to keep the service running and secure. These are kept short-term and are not used for profiling.
Other AirMates users can find you in search by your AirMates username or by your display name. AirMates also shows you friends-of-friends suggestions once you have your first connection, so you can discover people you might know. Whether you appear in other people's suggestion lists is separate: once you have your first connection, you will be asked whether you want to be suggested to others. This is off by default and you will be asked before it is turned on. You can change your mind at any time in Settings → Privacy, and you control every connection by accepting or declining any request.
Your location is shared only when you turn sharing on. AirMates shares the nearest airport, never a street address, a building, or live coordinates. Friends see an airport label, not your home, hotel, or car.
AirMates only retains your most recent shared airport. It is automatically deleted from our servers 48 hours after your last update, and you can delete it manually at any time from Sharing settings. No location history is kept.
Crew Picks is an optional, crew-curated guide to places near airports. If you choose to use it, we process the following, in addition to the data above:
Reviews you write: the review text you submit about a place, shown publicly inside AirMates together with your Crew Picks review name and, if you have set one, your airline. Your review name is a separate public display name used only for Crew Picks — it is not your AirMates username, and other users cannot use it to find or connect with you.
Star ratings: shown to all crew as an anonymous average — other users see the count and average score, never who rated what. Your individual rating is never attributed to you.
Favourites: private to you. No other user can see which places you have saved.
Place submissions: if you suggest a new place, you can optionally share your precise location once to pin the place on the map. This is a one-time coordinate for that place — it is not stored as your location, is not shared as your presence, and is not part of the 48-hour location sharing described above. The pinned coordinates describe the place, not you.
Purpose limitation: Crew Picks content is used only to operate the Crew Picks feature — showing places and reviews to other crew and moderating submissions. We do not use it for advertising, marketing, profiling, or any unrelated purpose.
Retention: your reviews, ratings, and favourites are kept while your account exists and are deleted when you delete your account. Approved places you submitted remain in the shared guide (without your personal data) because they describe a venue, not a person.
Crew Picks Archive: places in the Crew Picks Archive were compiled by crew members, some before AirMates existed, and are not associated with any current user account. They are provided as a starting point only — venue details such as opening hours, menus, prices, and even whether the venue still exists may have changed. Always verify before visiting.
Third parties: place cards may include a link that opens the place in Google Maps. Nothing is sent to Google until you tap the link; from that point Google's own terms and privacy policy apply. We do not import Google review content into AirMates. Reviews in Crew Picks are written by AirMates users only.
We do not use real account names, profile photos, or shared data in marketing material, app store screenshots, blog posts, social media, or promotional content without your written permission. The friends and locations shown in our screenshots and demos are mock accounts created for that purpose. If we ever want to feature you in a case study or testimonial, we will ask you first and you can decline without any effect on your account.
Location: up to 48 hours after your last update, then deleted automatically.
Account, profile, settings, and connections: kept while your account exists. Deleted when you delete your account.
Notifications you receive: kept for up to 7 days, then deleted automatically. You can delete them sooner, and they are also removed when you delete your account.
Server logs: short-term only, for security and debugging.
Banned accounts: if we permanently ban an account for abuse, we keep a minimal record such as the email address or username so the banned person cannot simply re-register. We keep this only for that safety purpose.
To run the app we rely on a small set of trusted service providers. They process data on our behalf, under contract, only to deliver the service:
Replit — hosting and database infrastructure.
Apple and Google — sign-in providers when you use Sign in with Apple or Sign in with Google. Each shares only the verified name and email needed to create your account. Neither receives your location data or other in-app activity. Apple and Google also handle push notification delivery; push payloads are encrypted end-to-end and the provider cannot read the content.
Mozilla — push notification delivery. Payloads are encrypted end-to-end; Mozilla routes the message but does not see its content.
CARTO basemaps — map tile delivery. When your map view loads, your IP address and the tile coordinates you view are visible to CARTO as part of standard web requests.
BigDataCloud — reverse geocoding to turn coordinates into a place name when needed. Coordinates you choose to share may be sent to BigDataCloud for this purpose.
Resend — transactional email delivery. Used for authentication codes (email sign-in) and social notifications (friend requests and acceptances). Resend processes your email address and the content of those messages on our behalf.
Stripe — only if you choose to support AirMates financially through the Support link. Stripe handles payment data directly under its own privacy policy.
DiceBear — generates default avatars from your username. No personal data beyond the username is sent.
OpenStreetMap Foundation (Nominatim) — reverse geocoding used when a Crew Picks place submission is approved, to turn the place's coordinates into a city and country label and to find its nearest airport. Only the place's coordinates are sent — never your account details.
Some of the providers above may process your data outside your country, including in the United States. Where applicable, we rely on the standard contractual safeguards published by the European Commission to protect that data.
If you are in the EU, the UK, or another jurisdiction with similar laws, you have the right to: access your data, correct it, delete it, export it in a portable format, restrict or object to certain processing, and withdraw consent at any time. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.
You can exercise most of these rights directly in Settings — edit your profile, change sharing, download a copy of your data, or delete your account. For anything else, contact us at the address below.
To request account deletion, follow the in-app steps or visit our public account deletion page.
AirMates is intended for people 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect data from minors. If you believe a minor has created an account, please contact us and we will remove it.
We use a small number of essential storage items in your browser: a session cookie to keep you logged in, and local storage entries to remember preferences (for example, that you dismissed an install prompt or accepted the legal terms). We do not currently use advertising or analytics cookies; if that ever changes we will tell you in advance and, where required, ask for your consent.
We may send you essential operational messages (for example, security alerts, important account notices, or required updates to these terms) regardless of your marketing or newsletter preferences. You will only receive marketing or newsletter messages if you have opted in.
We also send transactional social notifications by email, specifically when another user sends you a friend request or when someone accepts your friend request. These are not marketing. They are direct notifications about actions taken toward your account.
Turning on sharing, or setting a Heading To destination, can trigger a push notification to friends who already follow you, so they know to open the map. You control this entirely. If you do not start sharing, no notifications go out on your behalf. You can also turn off the relevant categories in your own Notifications settings to stop receiving these from others, and your friends can do the same.
Connections to AirMates use HTTPS encryption in transit. Access to production data is restricted to the people who operate the service. No online service can guarantee perfect security; please notify us if you suspect anything unusual with your account.
If a security incident affects your personal data, we will notify you without undue delay through the app and, where required, notify the relevant authorities within the timeframes set by applicable law.
AirMates is operated by the AirMates founding team. For privacy questions, data requests, or anything else, write to AirMates.app@gmail.com. You can also use the Send feedback option in Settings, which opens your mail app pre-addressed.
We may update this policy as AirMates evolves. When changes are material, we will ask you to review and accept the new version before you continue using the app.
Demo mode uses sample friends and does not require this legal-consent step. No real personal data is processed in demo mode.
Questions? Email AirMates.app@gmail.com.