I searched for a topic on this and had no luck. Will Airlines bring back their inflight Magazines? I know most did away with them during the pandemic, but have yet to see any airlines bring them back yet. I also wonder how much weight they add to a plane? I would be really curious to see if that weight has reduced flight costs?

While the savings might be nice, I wonder if they helped generate sales? For example, an article about Podunk City and how an airline flies there. Did airlines ever measure if the magazines helped increase sales to that city? I also wonder if it generated revenue with advertising and vendors?

Lastly, I just miss flipping through an inflight Magazine. Looking at things like route maps, fleets, and the President's welcome aboard section.

The quality of inflight magazines had deteriorated in the years prior to the pandemic that they weren't even worth picking up, unless you wanted to look at an ad for a dating service for working professionals, or where to find the best dermatologist in Charlotte. I rarely saw anyone open one in years previous.

Non-US carriers typically had better magazines IMO...the Swiss magazine was quite thick and chock full of interesting articles with great photographs, as was CX's.

I doubt they will return. I give UA's Hemispheres a year, tops.

If they provide incremental sources of profit for the airlines through advertisements and/or other things such as credit card applications, then yes.

Although airlines such as JetBlue, Delta, or United can convert them to electronic forms and add it to their seat back entertainment. American and Southwest would be out of luck.

FlyingSicilian wrote:

United brought theirs back months ago and they mailed them out to high level frequent flyers during the pandemic also. While it does not kill too much time I find UA's acceptable for what it is, and I see people reading them often both in the lounge and on flights.

Mailing the magazines to frequent flyers was the brilliant move on United's part. Hemispheres was able to keep advertisers happy, that their contracts wouldn't be wasted, and ultimately they have something to sell. Sky magazine and AmericanWay stopping in the start of the pandemic, would mean that advertisers would ask for refunds, and then move on. If those airlines has wanted to start their magazines again, the sales teams would have had to build back their ad customers like a brand new magazine. Hemispheres never lost most of their customers, and the ones that stuck with them through the pandemic only have a growing reader base now, so no reason to pull out now.

Will United keep the magazine forever? I don't know, but there's no reason the magazine should have less value in 2023 than it did in 2019. If it makes money, it makes money. It doesn't really matter if AA or DL don't think the magazines are worthwhile.

cosyr wrote:

AmericanWay stopping in the start of the pandemic

AA was actually the only US carrier to continue furnishing their magazine onboard during the pandemic; they only discontinued AmericanWay in June 2021. They did, however, stop publishing Nexos and Celebrated Living at the start of the pandemic, and I believe they were the only US carrier at the time of discontinuation to have a Spanish magazine, and a premium class magazine.

I used to read the magazine for the CEO blog, the route map (new routes) and city spotlight (eat, see, stay, etc). I'm a DL guy so those were the things I looked for in SKY (along with the sokoku and crossword). I don't miss it, however. I do wonder how much revenue was lost. As pointed out, UA was wise to mail it to top customers. If DL had the magazine in digital form on the IFE...I"d probably glance at it. But would the advertisers be happy? That's mostly what it was - a giant add blurb. And worth noting, as airlines go "green", slick paper (like magazines) don't get recycled. So a massive amount of paper is not being produced any longer.

Now, I will say, I do miss the catalogue SkyMall. While I think I only ever bought one item from it, I did enjoy it more than the inflight magazine.

davescj wrote:

Now, I will say, I do miss the catalogue SkyMall. While I think I only ever bought one item from it, I did enjoy it more than the inflight magazine.

The $14,000 treadmill, right?

davescj wrote:

I used to read the magazine for the CEO blog, the route map (new routes) and city spotlight (eat, see, stay, etc). I'm a DL guy so those were the things I looked for in SKY (along with the sokoku and crossword). I don't miss it, however. I do wonder how much revenue was lost. As pointed out, UA was wise to mail it to top customers. If DL had the magazine in digital form on the IFE...I"d probably glance at it. But would the advertisers be happy? That's mostly what it was - a giant add blurb. And worth noting, as airlines go "green", slick paper (like magazines) don't get recycled. So a massive amount of paper is not being produced any longer.

Now, I will say, I do miss the catalogue SkyMall. While I think I only ever bought one item from it, I did enjoy it more than the inflight magazine.

Same. They also used to have relatively good unique interest articles, but those were discontinued years ago.

I always got a laugh out out of the “20 best steakhouses in America” which should have been labeled “A list of who was willing to pay to be advertised in this magazine, ranked from largest to smallest fee.”

Nomadd wrote:

davescj wrote:

Now, I will say, I do miss the catalogue SkyMall. While I think I only ever bought one item from it, I did enjoy it more than the inflight magazine.

The $14,000 treadmill, right?

How did you know?????? LOL

Actually, it was a travel bag. Which I still use. My mom got a yard decoration once. Still has it.

The Skymall catalogue was my most welcome IFE over many years while listening to strange mono muzak through huge pneumatic plastic tube earplugs with violin heavy sound originating from somewhere below the armrest.

I liked inflight magazines until they became pure destination marketing platforms promoting only the most boring places and things to do.

The coolest destination guides were thin, leaflet-style paperbacks made for airline employees and made by them for internal crew use only. Like the current best places to eat to go and such. You had to know somebody to get those.

cosyr wrote:

FlyingSicilian wrote:

United brought theirs back months ago and they mailed them out to high level frequent flyers during the pandemic also. While it does not kill too much time I find UA's acceptable for what it is, and I see people reading them often both in the lounge and on flights.

Mailing the magazines to frequent flyers was the brilliant move on United's part. Hemispheres was able to keep advertisers happy, that their contracts wouldn't be wasted, and ultimately they have something to sell. Sky magazine and AmericanWay stopping in the start of the pandemic, would mean that advertisers would ask for refunds, and then move on. If those airlines has wanted to start their magazines again, the sales teams would have had to build back their ad customers like a brand new magazine. Hemispheres never lost most of their customers, and the ones that stuck with them through the pandemic only have a growing reader base now, so no reason to pull out now.

Will United keep the magazine forever? I don't know, but there's no reason the magazine should have less value in 2023 than it did in 2019. If it makes money, it makes money. It doesn't really matter if AA or DL don't think the magazines are worthwhile.

Personally I find AA's and DL's magazines to not be so memorable. I love collecting Hemispheres though! They actually have great content and I find that they do a great job of enticing United's high income, high value premium luxury FF base with the "three perfect days" articles. Was excited every month during the pandemic to receive them in the mail.

I used to love non-US inflight magazines because I tried to teach myself a foreign language that way to get an understanding of syntax.

While physical copies haven’t returned to most airlines, I know you can download TP and SK magazines from their digital libraries once you check in for a flight and read them on a mobile device. Likely many others have followed suit.

What I really started to hate in inflight magazines were ever returning picture heavy, sort of poor man's national geographic, stories like the beautiful rooftop tiles of Palma de Mallorca or old scenic cobblestone roads in La Provence or all those colourful garden fences of Poznan.

I've always liked inflight magazines. Always went straight to the back of the magazine and look at the route maps and fleet pages before going back to the front and reading the articles.

Although they have always grabbed seatback kneespace to an unreasonable extent (bad), I've always found interesting articles. As a nervous flyer (less so these days) reading them was comforting on takeoff. JL's I found particualrly interesting, QF's less so. I don't recaall them on CX immediately pre-pandemic - access to a range of mags vis PressReader was a perk there.

I quite like inflight magazines as well. I don't care for the other articles, but I loved seeing the fleet, destinations, and other aviation-related stuff.
They do reduce legroom, at least in Y, although some seatbacks solve(d) this by having 2 storage pockets, one at the top or under the IFE, and one at the bottom.

I'm 50/50 on digitalizing the magazines. On the one hand, it reduces paper & weight, and adds legroom (well, that depends-see above). But on the other, it requires people to look at a screen when they might just want to read. Although if passengers did want to read something, I suppose they'd bring their own literature material. Oh well, everything has its pros and cons I guess.

I worked on the fuel costs of magazines a long time ago.

For SkyMall, we had a contract whereby the airline was paid a flat fee for carrying the magazine, and then a fixed amount per passenger. The fixed amount was designed to cover the cost of fuel, but when fuel prices spiked in 2008, carrying SkyMall became unprofitable, and so the contract was renegotiated.

Beyond just determining what the new necessary rates would be, we also worked with SkyMall (and more recently, the regular magazine publisher) to alter the paper stock to a lighter paper. Small per magazine, but it saved hundreds of thousands of gallons per year.

F9Animal wrote:

While the [fuel] savings might be nice, I wonder if they helped generate sales? For example, an article about Podunk City and how an airline flies there. Did airlines ever measure if the magazines helped increase sales to that city? I also wonder if it generated revenue with advertising and vendors?

My current airline often focuses on new destinations to raise awareness among customers. The writing, advertising sales, and publication of the magazine is outsourced, but we have final say on content.

FlyingSicilian wrote:

United brought theirs back months ago and they mailed them out to high level frequent flyers during the pandemic also. While it does not kill too much time I find UA's acceptable for what it is, and I see people reading them often both in the lounge and on flights.

davescj wrote:

Now, I will say, I do miss the catalogue SkyMall. While I think I only ever bought one item from it, I did enjoy it more than the inflight magazine.

BoeingERJ1000 wrote:

I'm 50/50 on digitalizing the magazines. On the one hand, it reduces paper & weight, and adds legroom (well, that depends-see above). But on the other, it requires people to look at a screen when they might just want to read. Although if passengers did want to read something, I suppose they'd bring their own literature material. Oh well, everything has its pros and cons I guess.

Part of the rationale for the magazine (and definitely was the case for SkyMall) is that it's a form of in-flight entertainment beyond the video screens. If there are no video screens, then customer satisfaction would likely go down.

Two magazines impressed me from ages ago: Lufthansa (all articles overly in depth- it read like a technical manual and could put you to sleep- maybe that was the purpose) and Royal Brunei's (light on content, but the production was the best I've ever seen)- it was produced in SIN as the quality couldn't be done in Brunei.

I liked LA's In magazine, and Air France's. Air France has/had two magazines, aside to the regular one, there is/was a fashion one, my mother loves those. I don't know if AF still publishes the fashion magazine.
Or was the fashion magazine just a monthly swag from CDG airport?

I will say....I remember when regular magazines were also on offer (Time, Newsweek, etc). That's long gone as well. BA's was the worse magazine in my opinion.

A great inflight magazine, sadly halted during Covid was Air Canada’s Navi magazine. In addition to the magazine enRoute, Navi was aimed at a-netters like us.

Filled with aircraft specs, maps, timetables, etc., the articles were all airline/operation themed.

Smaller than magazine format, it would be great to see it back.


https://issuu.com/spafax/docs/air-canad ... -printemps

davidjohnson6 wrote:

I'm not sure I would call Navi a magazine in the conventional sense.

If you mean, it’s not filled with useless fluff and paid destination/restaurant/product endorsements littered with ads, then you are correct, it’s not a “magazine”.

It is however, a roughly 60 page booklet filled with all the things that get aviation enthusiasts going. To me, it’s the best part of inflight magazines, removed, placed in a separate journal then amplified tenfold.

I was always curious though about it’s “purpose”. Are there really that many avgeeks travelling that it was warranted? As I said, due to Covid, it has been discontinued. As resources are tight, I’d be surprised if it were resurrected any time soon. It was very popular though and the idea of a paid subscription delivered by post was suggested. (It would save me having to arm wrestle a passenger for a copy, as there were only one per seat pocket).

Miss comparing monthly subtractions and additions of route map lines. Though with route maps being so skeletal now, they would probably ditch the lines for cities like AA used to do. Hopefully Delta brings back their digital Sky mag soon. Enjoy the airline advertising in them and CEO message of the month.

Can't remember the last time I flicked through an inflight mag, leave alone actually read anything in it. Likely costs more in fuel to lug them around than the ad revenue they generate (the reason there's no point trying to read them).

I was amused to hear frequent references to "found in the back of your American Way magazine" during in-flight announcements on my recent LHR-ORD flight on AA. I guess AA can't afford to hire the bright-voiced announcer to redo them.