Inflight magazine readership, he says, is rising not just because passenger numbers are increasing 5% year-on-year, but because the formula is simple and effective: a long flight, a captive audience and the fact that people don’t just do one thing on a plane.
“Some people might say that with devices and inflight entertainment, why would people read the magazine?” Keating says. “But actually they have always read the magazine.
“Whether you’re at home or sitting in a captive situation in an aircraft you’ll reach forward and read the magazine, you’ll watch a film, you’ll have a glass of wine or sleep — you’ll basically do all of the above.”
Ink has parlayed that belief into an inflight magazine empire that now stands unrivaled among inflight publishers.
The company currently creates 36 magazines for 26 airlines and its products reach 677 million people a year globally.
In the last two years it’s been on an acquisitions binge, picking up coveted titles from American Airlines, United Airlines, Iberia, Norwegian and Hong Kong Express, among others.
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Keating says the sheer measurability of a planeload of people — from demographic information such as age and gender to contextual information like destinations and the date of the flight — has made for a strong business model for its targeted advertising.
Ink’s ads now appear on everything from print-at-home boarding passes and email booking confirmations to airline mobile apps.
While it hasn’t always been blue skies for Ink — Keating admits that Ryanair’s decision to remove its seatback pockets had been difficult for the publishing group — he says its continuing success is predicated on challenging outdated notions of what an inflight magazine should be.
“We changed the business model to a large degree,” he says.
“In the early days we’d go to airlines and say you have a poor product and you’re paying a lot of money for it, how about we give you a great product and we’ll pay you.”
Peter Shadbolt is a freelance writer who has worked across media platforms in places as diverse as Hong Kong, Italy and the Czech Republic. He now resides in London where he covers science and technology at CNN.com.
