An issue of Navi, Air Canada's business class inflight magazine

An inflight magazine (or in-flight magazine) is a free magazine distributed via the seats of an airplane, by an airline company, or in an airport lounge.

Overview

Many airline companies, or a few key content-creating companies, produce in-flight magazines to provide details about their fleet, as well as articles about destinations, travel, and tourism information. In-flight publishing and media are a niche in the magazine industry. Airline titles have controlled distribution costs and readership figures come from existing passenger traffic. Most airlines use external publishers to produce their magazines.^[1] In a 2009 Harris Poll, 94% of "business passengers" read in-flight magazines when they traveled by air, with a 30-minute average reading time per flight.^[1] Despite the challenges facing the traditional publishing industry, in-flight magazines saw a smaller readership decline than other physical publications during the 2010s.^[1] The quality of in-flight magazines varies from carrier to carrier. Their upscale, valuable, and captive readership appeals to advertisers across all sectors: luxury goods makers, car manufacturers, beauty and fashion brands, as well as global destinations.^[1]

History

The first in-flight magazine was started by Pan American World Airways in around 1952. Its title, "Clipper Travel", was a reference to their Boeing 314 Clipper aircraft.^[2] A decade later, KLM's Holland Herald,^[3] the longest running in-flight magazine, was first published in January, 1966.^[4] In-flight magazines began booming in the 1980s, with new airlines forming them one after another. Some, including Japan Airlines, had over 300 pages in their magazines. This method of flight entertainment has proved to be a success for airlines around the world. To this day, over 150 in-flight magazines are being published.^[5]

However, since the birth of digital technology, some key airlines are now offering the chance for magazines to be read digitally via tablet computer applications, or over the internet.^[6]

Publishers

Among specialized publishers are:

• Maxposure Media Group, which produces Shubh Yatra for Air India, Spice Route for SpiceJet Airlines, Vistara Magazine for Vistara Airline (JV between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines), GoGetter for GoAir India, Trujetter for TruJet Airlines, Fly Smiles for Air Pegasus, Gulf Life for Gulf Air out of Bahrain, Nawras for Air Arabia in Sharjah and Morocco, Saudi Gulf Magazine for Saudigulf Airlines in Saudi Arabia and Salam Air in Oman. It has offices in India, United States, Bangladesh, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. The sales network spans more than 20 countries. It is the largest custom and in-flight magazine publisher in Asia. The company publishes more than 30 in-flight and custom magazines in over 20 languages and offers a mobile app, digital and social media platforms to its aviation clients.
• Ink is a global media company specialising in content and advertising for the travel sector, headquartered in London. The company works with over 27 airlines, rail and hotel partners worldwide (including American Airlines, United, Qatar Airways, Etihad Airways, easyJet and Norwegian), with offices in London, New York, Miami, São Paulo and Singapore. Ink produces over 27 in-flight magazines in 18 languages, and airline mobile apps for their travel partners. Ink offers advertising across magazines, and passenger travel documents (print-at home boarding passes, booking confirmation emails), in airline mobile apps and online properties. Their media channels reach over 783 million passengers every year.
• GroupSixPro, producing KAConfidential, the exclusive in-flight magazine of KaiserAir.
• ExiGent Magazine is the official and exclusive in-flight magazine of several airlines specialising in business jets throughout Europe and Africa. It also is the corporate magazine of one of the largest luxury real estate agencies. The company works with six airline and real estate agency partners (including Afrijet Business Service, Dassault Falcon Service, Jet Net Alliance, Helipass, Coldwell Banker France et Monaco and Sparfell and Partners). ExiGent Magazine produces six in-flight magazines in two languages, French and English.
• Spafax, a multinational editorial and content marketing company based in London, Montréal and Toronto with more than 70 clients around the world. Its 13 offices worldwide – London, Toronto, Montréal, Santiago, Lima, Dubai, Frankfurt, Madrid, Kuala Lumpur, Miami, New York, California, and Singapore – produce magazines and IFE products for clients such as British Airways, Air Canada, LAN, and Malaysia Airlines.
• Stream, producing around ten in-flight magazines, including CityJet.
• Agency Fish, whose main client is Srilankan Airlines and Garuda Indonesia.
• Motivate Publishing, which produces the in-flight magazine for Open Skies, and Emirates' business- and first-class magazine, Portfolio.
• Cedar Communications, which produces British Airways' High Life, First Life and Business Life.
• G+J Corporate Editors, which produces Lufthansa Magazin, Lufthansa Woman's world, Lufthansa exclusive and Holland Herald.
• Lagardere France, whose main airline client is Air France.
• Subcontinental Media Group, whose main airline clients are Biman Bangladesh Airlines from Bangladesh and Fly Africa Airlines in South Africa. It publishes Bihanga Magazine for Biman and Flyafrica.com Magazine for Fly Africa. It has offices in Dhaka (Bangladesh), New Delhi, Kolkata in India and Johannesburg in South Africa. SMG has a sales network in over 15 key countries in Europe, Asia, and the Americas.^[7]
• Bentang Media Nusantara, whose main airline clients are Lion Air, Wings Air and Batik Air.
• In-flight Media and Technologies, which publishes Max Air's in-flight magazine.
• Panorama Media Corp, are experienced publishers of consumer titles, specialist publications (including Skyways Magazine for Airlink for the last 30 years) and customer magazines, which compete in quality, design and reader appeal at an international level. Panorama Media Corp. is a full-service publishing company offering a one-stop service solution.
• Shuffle CMS, which produces Jet2.coms' JetAway

Specialized advertising agencies of in-flight magazines

• giO media (in-flight specialist for Benelux, Cyprus and Middle East markets), representing, recommending and centralizing all aspects of in-flight media. It is working for over 75% of all the airlines worldwide, such as British Airways, Air France, KLM, United-Continental, Emirates and Virgin Australia.^[8]
• IMM International (in-flight marketing bureau for France, Switzerland, UK, Italy and China markets), representing, recommending and centralizing all aspects of in-flight media. It works with 150 airlines worldwide (more than 200 magazines)^[9]
• The Media Ant, representing, recommending and centralizing all aspects of a few airlines. It works with 3 of 12 of the airlines in the country, such as IndiGo, Jetwings and Air Costa.^[10]
• In-flight Media and Technologies (in-flight marketing bureau for Max Air in Nigeria), representing and centralizing all aspects of in-flight media for Max Air. It also advertises on board for advertisers inside all Max Air fleets.
• òrkestra, the first media center in Italy specialized exclusively in advertising in in-flight magazines (more than 250 magazines in portfolio) of the most important airlines in the world^[11]

List of in-flight magazines

Similar magazines

Quite similar to in-flight magazines, some railroad companies offer a comparable product aboard their long distance trains, e.g. Deutsche Bahn's mobil or Indian Railways' Rail Bandhu magazine.^[43] This magazine is also distributed via the seats of the passenger cars.

See also

• Aircraft safety card
• Sickness bag

References