Our story
It starts with a mother at a gate.
She’s flown before — once, twice maybe — but it’s been years. The announcement is in Dutch and English. Neither is hers. The signs are small. The kiosk wants a QR code she can’t find. She’s been travelling for fifteen hours and the next gate doesn’t exist on her boarding pass.
Somewhere in the terminal, a young woman heading back home to Amsterdam for the weekend is scrolling her phone. She could help. They speak the same language. They’re on the same plane. They will never meet.
The workaround already exists. It lives in WhatsApp.
Every immigrant community runs one: a group chat, a Facebook post, a Reddit thread.
“Anyone flying CCU → AMS via Doha on the 17th? My mother is travelling alone. She speaks Bengali and Hindi. Any company would help.”
Someone answers. They exchange numbers. The mother flies with a companion. It works every time it happens. The problem is that most of the time, it doesn’t happen — because the WhatsApp group is small, and the right person isn’t in it.
Saathi is that post, made searchable.
You fill in a short form — flight number, date, who’s travelling, what kind of help would be welcome. It goes live. Somewhere, a traveller on the same flight sees it. We match on language first, flight number second, date third.
The match sends a short message. If accepted, contact details unlock — and then the two of them arrange everything else on their own, over WhatsApp, the way it’s always worked.
Money, if any, moves between them directly — Revolut, UPI, cash at the gate. We don’t touch it. That keeps us out of payments licensing, out of disputes, and lets us stay what we are: an introduction service.
Trust, without paperwork.
We don’t ask for passport scans. Verification is social-graph based: every user connects at least two of LinkedIn, X, or WhatsApp before they can post a trip or send a request.
A real employer, a real network. Fake-able alone, but hard to fake alongside the others.
X (Twitter)
Account age and history are visible proxies for whether the person exists outside of this app.
A one-time code on a working number. The lingua franca for families back home.
- No PII before accept. Full names, contact info, and photos of your loved one stay hidden until a match request is accepted.
- Reviews tied to completed trips only. Both parties mark the trip done before anyone can leave a review.
- Report & block. Every profile and every chat has a report button. Blocked users’ trips disappear from your view.
- Admin review. Flagged text and reports land in a human queue. We suspend and re-verify by hand.
What Saathi isn’t.
We’re not meet-and-assist-as-a-service. Professional airport assistance exists — Schiphol charges €80–120 for it. It’s competent but it’s uniformed and it rarely speaks your mother tongue.
Saathi is cheaper, but more importantly it’s cultural. Someone who speaks your mother’s language, shares her food habits, and understands why the Doha transfer makes her anxious is worth more than any uniform.
Who’s behind this.
Saathi is open source, built in the open by Raahul and Diksha. If you want to file an issue, send a PR, or just read the code, it’s on GitHub.
Ready to make the introduction?
Browse who’s on your flight, or post a trip yourself.