The Genre of Inflight Entertainment Magazines

Today lets talk about a very interesting sort of magazine called inflight magazine which caters to a very niche audience. So what is this inflight magazine?

An inflight magazine (or in-flight magazine) is a free magazine distributed via the seats of an airplane by an airline company. (source: wikipedia)

Why would an airline company distribute free magazine to its passengers?

1. Airline company is giving a sort of value added service through the magazine
2. Airline company talk about their brand, plans, upcoming announcements etc. This sort of allows to reach out to their customers directly.
3. People traveling in an flight are mostly high net worth individual (HNI) and probably influencers as well. Putting your product in front of them have a good chance of more word of mouth advertising and led to more influence marketing.
4. The inflight magazine also features info on various destinations, lifestyle, travel etc. Along with this info it also contains ads by various brands which wants to connect to such a niche and high net worth individuals. This ads brings good money to the airline company which may be enough to supplement the cost of the magazine publishing.

In India almost every airline company has their inflight magazine. Spicejet has Spice Route, Indigo has Hello 6E, GoGetter from GoAir, Subh Yatra from Air India, Vistara from Vistara (Tata Singapore Airlines), Travel 3sixty from Air Asia India, TruJetter from TruJet, JetWings from Jet Airways.

Airlines companies mainly outsource the publishing of such magazines and I found company like MaxPosure Media Group handles a bulk of it in India. They handle Air India, TruJet, Vistara, Air Asia India. The inflight magazine is not just a value added service to its patrons from Airlines companies, its also a source of income for the airline companies. I was checking the asking rates for such inflight magazines and it leaves me with no doubt that it makes economic sense as well to have such magazines. In most cases the airlines companies would be making money out of this magazines as well. Though it may not be their main source of income but every income is a good income. The asking rate on JetWings for a full page ad is Rs 80,000 as shown on The Media Ant. Asking rate for full page add on Indigo inflight magazine Hello 6E is Rs 435,000. Do the math for magazines of 12 issues a year and you will have the answer.

Inflight magazines are a good times pass and infotainment for the passengers. But at the same time I wanted to show that its makes complete economic sense for the airlines companies to have such a service and most probably they make money as well out of such service.