For a guy who has few investments, I spend a lot of time thinking about business. I watch news stories and when I hear about a failing industry I begin thinking about ways to improve it. This is especially the case with industries that shouldn’t be failing based how society depends on them.
I have offered ideas on how to save the movie theater industry and cell phone industry in previous posts but last night I literally shot up out of dead sleep with a possible solution for the airline business.
I think Google should start an airline – or at least significantly fund one. There are thousands of airlines in the air at any given time, each airliner holds hundreds of people. These people are sitting in one place staring at the back of the seat in front of them for an hour our more.
These people are reading about how to exit the plan and even how to use the vomit bag. Once they are bored with that, they may flip through the airline sponsored shopping magazine or watch the little LCD monitor in front of them as it nags them to insert a credit card to watch something else besides the credit card nag.
Why doesn’t someone put all this advertising space to good use and lower the price of air travel? City buses are full of advertising. Wouldn’t the same concept work with an airline?
The attendants could wear patches or the safety warning could be sponsored. Wouldn’t it be great if Starbuck’s paid to have the smell of a fresh roast piped through the airplane just before landing?
The inside of airlines have nothing but advertising space. Airlines may even find more money on their underside. While the underside of an airliner’s wings are rarely seen, they still have to be worth something for those who watch family come in or take off.
CBS could pay for LCD screens in 200 planes that would pay CBS programming. Begin an entire first season of a program and by the end of the flight the show would have a new group of regular viewers.
One big reason that computers have gradually decreased in price is because other companies are loading new systems with advertising and trialware. Why can’t the same be done with the airline business?
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