In-flight magazines targetted by some airlines to save weight/fuel

Apparently, in-flight magazines are a burden on aviation (on one airline, it accounted for almost 500,000 pounds for one day!) and word comes that some are ditching them, or cutting the page count, to save jet fuel. According to a story in The Guardian Emirates Airlines is discontinuing Open Skies; quite a sacrifice, since the magazine commands ad page rates in excess of $20,000.

According to Emirates' president Tim Clark, the decision to ban all onboard paper will lighten the aircraft by a tonne. "It's 2kg per seat and 500 seats, a worthwhile saving," he says. "We are doing it because of fuel prices and the environment. The printed matter will be replaced by content shown on the aircraft's seat-back TVs."

Japan Airlines announced last month it was reducing pagination in its magazine, which in the early 1990s was one of the largest in the world. James Rolls of travellingmedia.com, a London-based in-flight media agency said: "In the late 1980s, Japan Airlines actually removed seats from certain planes as its in-flight magazines were 300-odd pages in length, and it was a simple case of ticket sales versus ad page rates."Similarly, Norwest Airlines is cutting pages.

This is disturbing news for advertising, but also for freelancers who once earned among their highest fees writing for people to read at 30,000 feet. In the so-called "golden age" of in-flights in the '80s and early '90s, versions of the same article could be sold multiple times to different magazines and at premium fees, up to $4,000 a pop.

Still, the economic model of in-flights, where contract publishers bear the costs and the airline takes a cut of the ad sales, means that in-flights will probably still prove attractive, even when contrasted with the potential savings in fuel, the article says:

Canadian low-cost carrier WestJet earned $3m from its Up! in-flight magazine last year.

With figures like that it seems difficult to see a time when the in-flight magazine is no longer around - despite Emirates' decision to ditch its title. As Samir Husni (Mr. Magazine) says: "Of all the print media, in-flight magazines are the least of my worries."