Appreciating how critical it is to continue offering cheap airplane tickets and cheap vacation packages, airlines have identified a way to raise revenue that is not at the expense of its customers: they have started placing ads on their boarding passes.
US Airways is the latest airline to include ads on its boarding passes. Advertisers on US Airways boarding passes include airport parking lots, Starbucks, audio book retailer Audible.com and outdoor retailer REI. Such ads are appealing to advertisers because it allows them to target the cities that passengers are traveling to.
US Airways has found that the most popular destinations for ads on boarding passes are popular tourist locales such as Las Vegas, Orlando and New York. There are a total of five places for separate ads on US Airways boarding passes.
The airline declined to spell out the potential annual revenue from such ads but acknowledged that it is 30 percent to 40 percent more than it currently receives from its tray table advertising.
The first large airline to sell ads on its boarding passes was Delta which began this practice on flights to Las Vegas in July of 08.
Only US Airways passengers who check in online and print their own boarding passes will receive ads. This amounts to about 33 percent of its customers. Online customers are given the option of printing their boarding passes without ads. During the first week this program was in place 75 percent of eligible passengers printed the ads.
When passengers hand their boarding pass to gate agents they retain the portion of the pass that includes the ads. Most passengers welcome any airline initiative to raise more revenue, so long as it does not cost travelers additional money.
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