SkyMall files for bankruptcy

[Anderson]

I recall that on some flights, you could actually purchase and receive certain items right on board from the flight attendants....not sure if that was thru the Sky Mall or directly from the airline.....I purchased a unique pen with a built in light.....

Some airlines have stores of their own wherein you can purchase things in-flight. IIRC, this was nudged at one time as a sort of "duty free" experiment by a few airlines (Icelandair has such a program: http://www.icelandair.us/information/on-board/in-flight-duty-free/)...but I think it has only been a thing with airlines that do mostly trans-oceanic international travel (and presumably with cooperative corporate domiciles that are happy to let them dodge any tax hassles).

The biggest issue SkyMall probably faced wasn't that people weren't buying the stuff...just that they weren't buying from them. Basically they had a "showrooming" problem (i.e. someone wants the Harry Potter wand but instead of going to SkyMall, they go online, check prices, and buy direct from the seller and thereby cut out SkyMall)...and they're not the only one (Circuit City, Best Buy, and a lot of others have had that sort of problem).

 

[ScottRu]

I've never known a soul who purchased something from SkyMall. Alas.

But, "Engineer," thanks for the Ricky Gervais bit. He is one hilarious individual.

 

[tonys96]

I recall that on some flights, you could actually purchase and receive certain items right on board from the flight attendants....not sure if that was thru the Sky Mall or directly from the airline.....I purchased a unique pen with a built in light.....

Some airlines have stores of their own wherein you can purchase things in-flight. IIRC, this was nudged at one time as a sort of "duty free" experiment by a few airlines (Icelandair has such a program: http://www.icelandair.us/information/on-board/in-flight-duty-free/)...but I think it has only been a thing with airlines that do mostly trans-oceanic international travel (and presumably with cooperative corporate domiciles that are happy to let them dodge any tax hassles).
The biggest issue SkyMall probably faced wasn't that people weren't buying the stuff...just that they weren't buying from them. Basically they had a "showrooming" problem (i.e. someone wants the Harry Potter wand but instead of going to SkyMall, they go online, check prices, and buy direct from the seller and thereby cut out SkyMall)...and they're not the only one (Circuit City, Best Buy, and a lot of others have had that sort of problem).

True.

I found a great logo watch company in Sky Mall, then bought my co workers watches online at a cheaper price after landing.

 

[snvboy]

The business model of SkyMall wasn't to actually sell stuff. Well, they tried that in the beginning and failed.

SkyMall was PURELY advertising. Every page of the "catalog" was bought and paid for by others. So the have gone bankrupt not because people aren't buying things, but because people aren't looking at the advertising. Same reason the newspapers are dying. But that might only be part of the story.

Here's an interesting profile of SkyMall from a couple years ago, that possibly predicts its demise due to shady mergers and OTC stock scheming and weight-loss products.

Fun!

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/06/skymall-the-strange-story-of-americas-most-delightfully-weird-catalogue/276807/

 

[KVG_DC]

This is a very rough time for the printed magazine and catalog business.

Not to mention newspaper's and books....

Amazingly, I heard recently that JC Penney was going to bring back their catalogs. I remember when receiving the old Sears, Roebuck, and Company catalog was an anticipated event. Especially for those in rural areas.....

Of course! You'd be running out of pages from last years in the outhouse by then.

As dad said, the worst part was when there were only the glossy slick pages left in the winter time...

 

[PRR 60]

A major source of on board entertainment is gone. My wife and I would love looking through that catalog. Some of the items were truly hilarious. Did anyone ever actually buy one of those garden zombies? The legend of SkyMall was even picked up by Hanes in one of their underwear commercials. A guy is wearing a shirt made up of live kittens. When questioned about it, he says, "But I got it on SkyMall."

I have to confess. I once bought from SkyMall. US Airways had a promotion which provided an increasingly large number of bonus miles depending on how many different partner purchases you made. On FlyerTalk, it became a sensation with tips and schemes to get as many partner credits with as little expenditure as possible. SkyMall was a partner. The early SkyMall strategy was to by a two 9V batteries (to get above a $1 purchase), but SkyMall must have picked up on that and blocked it. Since I was late to the game, I bought a small LED flashlight for $8. A rip-off, but I had to have the credit.

RIP, SkyMall. All of us bored and waiting for take-off will miss you.

 

[SarahZ]

A major source of on board entertainment is gone. My wife and I would love looking through that catalog. Some of the items were truly hilarious. Did anyone ever actually buy one of those garden zombies? The legend of SkyMall was even picked up by Hanes in one of their underwear commercials. A guy is wearing a shirt made up of live kittens. When questioned about it, he says, "But I got it on SkyMall."

We did! Our friends are REALLY into Halloween, so we bought it for them as a wedding gift. It was a big hit.

 

[Long Train Runnin']

Good article about some of the more obscure offerings

http://www.cnet.com/pictures/skymalls-legacy-of-crazy-geeky-products-pictures/12/

 

[railiner]

I recall that on some flights, you could actually purchase and receive certain items right on board from the flight attendants....not sure if that was thru the Sky Mall or directly from the airline.....I purchased a unique pen with a built in light.....

Some airlines have stores of their own wherein you can purchase things in-flight. IIRC, this was nudged at one time as a sort of "duty free" experiment by a few airlines (Icelandair has such a program: http://www.icelandair.us/information/on-board/in-flight-duty-free/)...but I think it has only been a thing with airlines that do mostly trans-oceanic international travel (and presumably with cooperative corporate domiciles that are happy to let them dodge any tax hassles).

The biggest issue SkyMall probably faced wasn't that people weren't buying the stuff...just that they weren't buying from them. Basically they had a "showrooming" problem (i.e. someone wants the Harry Potter wand but instead of going to SkyMall, they go online, check prices, and buy direct from the seller and thereby cut out SkyMall)...and they're not the only one (Circuit City, Best Buy, and a lot of others have had that sort of problem).

Indeed....it is popular knowledge that Best Buy is Amazon's 'showroom'......

 

[CHamilton]

ScottEVest Founder Puts In Bid For SkyMall

It’s back! Venerable SkyMall, that inflight catalog full of stepping stools for dogs and hearing gadgets, may have a second life thanks to the larger-than-life CEO of ScottEVest, Scott Jordan. Jordan, who we interviewed at CES this year, is putting in a bid for the company and hopes to turn it around by bringing it into the 21st century.

How much is he offering? He wouldn’t say.

Good old ScottEVest. Their products gave me the excuse chance for one of the best blog titles I ever came up with.

SCOTTEVEST Hoodie: What Has It Got In Its Pocketses, My Precious?

 

[Anderson]

I did just have the thought of a bankruptcy auction for SkyMall and the idea of some auctioneer being stuck selling off random lots of the various stuff SkyMall sells. It seems like they're not headed for liquidation and I know that's not their business model, but it would be hilarious all the same.

 

[Alexandria Nick]

What baffles me more than Skymall surviving to 2015 is that Airfone made it to 2008 (and 2013 in general aviation!).

 

[BCL]

I recall that on some flights, you could actually purchase and receive certain items right on board from the flight attendants....not sure if that was thru the Sky Mall or directly from the airline.....I purchased a unique pen with a built in light.....

I don't think they quite had that since stocking items on a plane would have been unwieldy. I do remember being on international flights where duty free items could be ordered on the plane and were actually carried on board, but selection was limited and often the flight attendants would check their stock and report that they were out of catalog items. However, I understand that many of SkyMall's items were stocked at warehouses near airports, where the customer could find the items waiting for them on arrival after ordering on the plane.

 

[railiner]

I recall that on some flights, you could actually purchase and receive certain items right on board from the flight attendants....not sure if that was thru the Sky Mall or directly from the airline.....I purchased a unique pen with a built in light.....

I don't think they quite had that since stocking items on a plane would have been unwieldy. I do remember being on international flights where duty free items could be ordered on the plane and were actually carried on board, but selection was limited and often the flight attendants would check their stock and report that they were out of catalog items. However, I understand that many of SkyMall's items were stocked at warehouses near airports, where the customer could find the items waiting for them on arrival after ordering on the plane.

I agree...IIRC, there were just a handful of small items (like my pen), that you could actually receive on board...the rest you would get either at the airport, or at home...

 

[Anderson]

What baffles me more than Skymall surviving to 2015 is that Airfone made it to 2008 (and 2013 in general aviation!).

That doesn't shock me...if only because once the phones were installed it didn't make much sense to rip them out. I believe that inertia was a governing factor here. Also, the Airfone space in the seats wasn't needed for anything else for a while IIRC.

In general aviation, inertia was probably an even stronger factor...and the service was apparently simply a Verizon subsidiary for much of that 2008-13 time.

Incidentally, that initial SkyMall model would have worked...but only on a handful of key routes or in key hub cities (i.e. New York, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, etc.) and possibly with a limited catalogue. From what I can tell, SkyMall tried doing that everywhere.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

The Airfone system targeted a potentially lucrative market but also suffered from flaky service and expensive fees. Which in and of itself doesn't necessarily prevent it from succeeding commercially, but since Americans are not preconditioned to accept high per-minute fees the service failed in a rather predictable fashion. If they had improved the quality and dependability of the service and focused on monthly or annual subscriptions then it might have succeeded until the likes of Gogo came of age.

 

[BCL]

What baffles me more than Skymall surviving to 2015 is that Airfone made it to 2008 (and 2013 in general aviation!).

That doesn't shock me...if only because once the phones were installed it didn't make much sense to rip them out. I believe that inertia was a governing factor here. Also, the Airfone space in the seats wasn't needed for anything else for a while IIRC.

Newer 777s and other planes were actually using that space for personal video. However, the costs of rewiring a plane for that kind of video system is rather prohibitive. I remember flying internationally around 2008-9. Our outbound flight was on a 777-300 where all the seats had personal video. The inbound flight was on an older 747-400. I was talking to the flight attendant about how I though the 777 was nicer, but he said he'd rather be on a plane with four engines. It was a United flight, and he didn't believe me when I said that United used to have a bookable SFO-OAK flight.

I used Airfone once in the mid 90s. I hoping to keep my call short and managed to do it under a minute. Even then the connection fee was $7 and the single minute of call time was $7.

 

[railiner]

I was talking to the flight attendant about how I though the 777 was nicer, but he said he'd rather be on a plane with four engines. It was a United flight, and he didn't believe me when I said that United used to have a bookable SFO-OAK flight.

At that time, you could also book a flight between Norfolk and Newport News...

 

[OlympianHiawatha]

I was talking to the flight attendant about how I though the 777 was nicer, but he said he'd rather be on a plane with four engines. It was a United flight, and he didn't believe me when I said that United used to have a bookable SFO-OAK flight.

At that time, you could also book a flight between Norfolk and Newport News...

Not to mention being able to fly CO (Continental) between Houston and Houston!

 

[Bob Dylan]

Not to mention being able to fly between Ft. worth ( Amon Carter) and Dallas ( Love Field) on Braniff!

 

[BCL]

I was talking to the flight attendant about how I though the 777 was nicer, but he said he'd rather be on a plane with four engines. It was a United flight, and he didn't believe me when I said that United used to have a bookable SFO-OAK flight.

At that time, you could also book a flight between Norfolk and Newport News...

Not to mention being able to fly CO (Continental) between Houston and Houston!

Aren't they 25 miles apart? I do understand that Houston is a huge place.

SFO-OAK was maybe 11 miles as the crow flies. It was supposed to be the shortest scheduled flight on major jet aircraft. I think there are puddle jumper flights shorter than that, but none of the major airlines ever had a shorter scheduled flight. On that flight the plane spent way more time on the ground than in the air - from the time it left the gate to when it arrived at the gate.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

I was talking to the flight attendant about how I though the 777 was nicer, but he said he'd rather be on a plane with four engines. It was a United flight, and he didn't believe me when I said that United used to have a bookable SFO-OAK flight.

At that time, you could also book a flight between Norfolk and Newport News...

Not to mention being able to fly CO (Continental) between Houston and Houston!

Aren't they 25 miles apart? I do understand that Houston is a huge place.

Yep. One humongous amoeba of mindless unmitigated suburban sprawl. Houston is as depressing and soulless as any city I've ever seen.

 

[tonys96]

I was talking to the flight attendant about how I though the 777 was nicer, but he said he'd rather be on a plane with four engines. It was a United flight, and he didn't believe me when I said that United used to have a bookable SFO-OAK flight.

At that time, you could also book a flight between Norfolk and Newport News...

Not to mention being able to fly CO (Continental) between Houston and Houston!

Aren't they 25 miles apart? I do understand that Houston is a huge place.

Yep. One humongous amoeba of mindless unmitigated suburban sprawl. Houston is as depressing and soulless as any city I've ever seen.

THIS

 

[Anderson]

I was talking to the flight attendant about how I though the 777 was nicer, but he said he'd rather be on a plane with four engines. It was a United flight, and he didn't believe me when I said that United used to have a bookable SFO-OAK flight.

At that time, you could also book a flight between Norfolk and Newport News...

Yeah, but I can think of more than a few days when that would actually make sense but for the TSA!

No, really...the traffic between Norfolk and Newport News can be absolutely horrid, to the point that you'll lose over an hour to the tunnels some days. I could honestly see making that hop to get to the beach on certain Fridays if Southside actually had decent public transit...and am imagining random days when that airline would have a 1730 flight suddenly slammed with people due to a major accident in one of the tunnels! The two airports are also about 30 miles apart.

Then again, there are also plenty of days when a flight IAD-DCA would also make sense, TSA or no TSA.

 

[railiner]

AA (and perhaps others), have on occasion ran flights between the three major NYC airports --EWR, JFK, and LGA. These weren't in the regular schedule, as have been the other ones discussed in this thread. Rather, these were the results of repositioning aircraft to their assigned locations after off-scheduled operations, due to weather or curfew diversions.

Even though not regularly scheduled, these would be loaded into the Sabre System, and theoretically, could be booked....