United has been paying a guy to hold up a sign at its hubs, thanking passengers. But labor is tough to come by these days, and it looks like they’ve figured out how to to leverage underutilized space to get their messages across to customers:
It's great to see employee ideas come to life! DEN Ramp Manager Jon had the brilliant idea to make use of the top of our bag carts seen by so many customers and the final result looks amazing! Nice job Jonny! pic.twitter.com/4VM0M9HE8F
— Luke David ✈️ (@LukeatUnited) August 20, 2021
This isn’t exactly a new idea. Southwest Airlines, for instance, uses the side of catering trucks to get the point across about ‘free snacks’.
US Airways even used to sell advertising space on tray tables.
AirTran actually launched ads on the backs of the tray tables (so you saw the ads when the table was up). United experimented with tray table ads as well.
Every so often when Ryanair has been out of the news for awhile the airlien’s founder will promote how cheap they are by speculating on a plan for pay toilets. Thirty years ago Alaska Airlines advertised that other airlines might consider such a move.
But there are other ways to generate revenue from lavatories – no one has yet advertised their co-brand credit card in the lavatory. In fact, I’ve suggested that airlines could use the lavatory walls for advertising, generating revenue from the loo, and this would fund larger lavs so a win-win for the airline and for customers.
All of this of course is really just a new spin on an old idea in marketing, and frankly one that’s long overdue.
Seems fine to me.
I think it’s a GREAT idea!! What the hell is the problem here??
Great use of otherwise unused space. A number of other airlines already do this as well — Alaska uses tops of baggage carts to advertise their safety program among other things, and Delta uses them to talk about their international presence at one of their hubs.
DL has been doing this is 2008. Again, UA trails the pack
To help really annoy their customers, airlines could consider training homeless birds like those squatting in the Philadelphia American Airlines Admirals Club to tow a miniature airborne promotional advertising banner.
The right way to go through the issue of is see due make the go through the issue.
Ecclesiastes 1:9
Delta has been doing this for years. Some of them are in Chinese and Japanese depending on what hub they are leaving out of.