Delta Adds New York Times To Seatback Screens — ‘Free Access’ Is Really A Subscription Pitch

Delta has a new deal with The New York Times to monetize passenger attention onboard its flights.

• SkyMiles members age 18 or older can log into Delta’s seat back entertainment system (‘Delta Sync’) and receive New York Times all-access for their flight and afterward – up to 24 hours.

• No credit card is required, and the offer can be used up to 12 times per calendar year.

• This incudes news, games, cooking, audio, and The Athletic

A long flight is a very good environment for crossword, wordle, long-form reads, podcasts, and saving recipes. And the Times hope is that it’ll convert to subscribers. Cleary they’re paying Delta in some form – whether for placement, lead generation, or conversion commissions. It’s a customer acquisition partnership pitched as premium onboard content.

Delta describes Sync as a personalized hub of exclusive partner offers, and already includes T-Mobile, Paramount+, YouTube Premium, Crunchyroll, Uber and Amex offers. So the Times is added into this stable to create a trial and conversion funnel. This is not ‘licensing news for passenger convenience.’ It gets the Times in front of Delta’s 200 million passengers at a time when they’re a somewhat captive audience.

And by the way this also helps Delta brand in the New York market where they’ve taken a lead, but could face a fight from whomever buys JetBlue.

It’s also another Delta commercial win while United continues to build its Kinective media platform to monetize passengers. Of course, downside is that some SkyMiles members will object to the New York Times as a brand.