US Airways inflight magazine is GARBAGE

freedom

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Feb 15, 2006
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It's something we all know , but don't take much time to think about , our inflight us airways publication ... There's alot of talk about what needs to be made right with this company . If i could give one and only ONE suggestion to improve this company (minus my self interest ) it would be to actually produce a magazine that is half way decent . You know the only time i see someone pick up our magazine on a flight is when they have nothing and i mean NOTHING better to do , and usually after 5 or 10 mintues of reading it they put it back ....Did you know that these inflight magazines are free to take ? guess what NO ONE TAKES THEM ....
I took last months publication and decided to page throu it to see what kind of image we as an airline are sending out ... this is what i got "ADD WHORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" i turned throu page after page after PAGE of adds .... it was disgusting to me how many adds there were .Even when there weren't adds , you know an actual article it seemed to me like they were trying to sell the destination they were talking about in the peice .
As someone who actually READS let me communicate with corporate , i don't enjoy reading adds or seeing them on EVERY SINGLE PAGE .... i don't like reading propganda that is made out to look like a travel peice that is simply trying to sell me on a partiuclar place (i.e shop here, sleep at this approved hotel that paid us to be in this peice , eat at this store located at xyz street )..
Last months publication had 204 pages and you mean to tell me that 90% of that magazine was filled with adds ?
Look us airways , if you want to do one thing right , if you want your coustmer to get off of that aircraft and not feel pissed at being cramed into those tiny little seats and nickled and dimed for every little thing (food) then you need to do a better job at helping to make what can sometimes be 5 hour flights more bearable . Look we're not jet blue and it wouldn't be cost effective to put cable tv in everyone of our aircraft but i don't think asking for a half way decent inflight magazine is shooting for the moon here .
This is what could go into an effective in flight magzine .
A sutable cover ,june's cover was a picture of some brightly coloured chairs!!!july's cover was some vines growing on the side of a house !?! a back alley crack whore can come up with better covers .... We are a world wide airline , give me a cover of a forest , a natural wonder ,a group of smiling us airways employee's ect .
Message from doug , this is PR at it's most basic level , this is about the best chance we will have at communicating with the public , so why is it that i have to flip throu 5 pages of adds to find it ? INSIDE cover message from doug page one , page TWO should be the index .
first section of our publication should of course be about travel ,so you should have a major peice about some location we travel too , it should be written in such a manner that it doesn't seem like the city PR guy wrote it . Then there should be a few other smaller articles about other destinations .
SPORTS , i don't know why people read it , but they enjoy it ,put a section about last months sports and discuss the different sports in depth .
TECH review , people love new gadgets , discuss them as if you didn't work for the company that made the items .
VIDEO game reviews , kids and men love to read this stuff
\CARS , - nuf said
FASHION - nuf said
WORLD news and some cool local news .
STAR GOSSIP , what can i say , people love that trash .
RESTURANT REVIEW
and finish the mag with the usual legal and inflight stuff that's already in it ....
Also consider color coding the sections so people can find what they are looking for quickly .
did you know that if you make a magazine that people want to read or enjoy reading your add sponsors will actually pay MORE to be in your magazine ?Right now i'd say the view is quanity over quality , how about trying it the OTHER way around .
 
There are more important things to worry about then a silly magezine. The company pays nothing to produce it, what do you expect???
:rolleyes:
 
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There are more important things to worry about then a silly magezine. The company pays nothing to produce it, what do you expect???
:rolleyes:

don't take this to be beligerant , but i absolutey and utterly disagree with you , there is NOTHING more important than this magazine , why do i say that ? because this is the BEST chance we have at getting to the flying public with our message and branding .There are problems with our airline,but what are they from a coustmer perspective , long lines at check in , missed bags , late flights . But i'll bet you if we were to take a look at this indepth we'd see that the long lines aren't at every station , the missed bags issue doesn't effect EVERY passnger and the percentage of late flights while bad proably isn't more than 10 mintues for most flights .There aren't alot of ways we can make these cramped dirty flights more comfortable , but i think a small way would be a publication that can take your mind off the crying baby behind you and transport you to that coastal villia off of spain , or drive your curiosity with a discussion about fords latest new car ... Jet blue has good PR because they can take the flying public's mind off of any crappiness they might have encoutnered by giving them the BOOB TUBE , we can't affaord that , but sometimes i think a good magazine can be just as good .
 
you need to be concerned about other things than the stupid magazine. buy your own befroe you board if you hate it so much. there are plenty of hudson news stands around the terminals with great magazines to read.
 
There are more important things to worry about then a silly magezine. The company pays nothing to produce it, what do you expect???
:rolleyes:
Obviously a west cost regional airline employee that has never seen an award winning in-flight magazine
 
<SNIP> I took last months publication and decided to page throu it to see what kind of image we as an airline are sending out ... this is what i got "ADD WHORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" i turned throu page after page after PAGE of adds .... it was disgusting to me how many adds there were .Even when there weren't adds , you know an actual article it seemed to me like they were trying to sell the destination they were talking about in the peice .
Okay, you’re the new editor and feature article writer.

Spell checker, too.
 
Obviously a west cost regional airline employee that has never seen an award winning in-flight magazine
EXACTLY. The ATTACHE' Magazine was a good magazine and was recognized repeatedly for excellent journalism. People that read, READ IT.....illiterate bums didn't even know how to pronounce it. (Kind of like Management NOT Knowing HOW to MANAGE. They suck B-I-G Time!)
 
I am so OVER Las Vegas. Vegas sells itself to the people who want to go there. You wipe your mouth with a napkin they are begging you to go to Vegas, you board the plane and the blue men are banging garbage cans together. The ten minute video- "This month's feature destinstion- Las Vegas!" Isn't that the featured destination all the time? It sure seems like it.

The magazine is the worst offender. The layout is awful, the overkill of casino ads is overwhelming, and what little content there is is written at a fifth grade level.

Attache was a great magazine. Who cares that it was "too highbrow" for the drunk gambling crowd. They are not the reading type anyway.

Yeah it's just a magazine but it just goes with the whole garish, shoestring, regional image of the airline. US Airways has taken the place of Mesa as the bottom-of-the-industry butt of jokes.
 
I am so OVER Las Vegas. Vegas sells itself to the people who want to go there. You wipe your mouth with a napkin they are begging you to go to Vegas, you board the plane and the blue men are banging garbage cans together. The ten minute video- "This month's feature destinstion- Las Vegas!" Isn't that the featured destination all the time? It sure seems like it.

The magazine is the worst offender. The layout is awful, the overkill of casino ads is overwhelming, and what little content there is is written at a fifth grade level.

Attache was a great magazine. Who cares that it was "too highbrow" for the drunk gambling crowd. They are not the reading type anyway.

Yeah it's just a magazine but it just goes with the whole garish, shoestring, regional image of the airline. US Airways has taken the place of Mesa as the bottom-of-the-industry butt of jokes.

Sing it sista, brotha

Things I don't do in protest on the a/c.

1. Show the Vegas boarding video.
2. Show the US Airways commercial before the movie trailor.
3. Show the loooong level off on red eyes.
4. No mention of the LAS/PHX...I mean US Airways magazine.
5. No serving on anything but US Airways, Fly With US napkins
6. No mention of the "If you need a room in LAS" announcement in LAS.

and shocker...over cash cow...too many flt attendants aggressive and lying about what the cardholder gets.

Oh well, write me up!
 
EXACTLY. The ATTACHE' Magazine was a good magazine and was recognized repeatedly for excellent journalism. People that read, READ IT.....illiterate bums didn't even know how to pronounce it. (Kind of like Management NOT Knowing HOW to MANAGE. They suck B-I-G Time!)
That's why they got rid of it.....none of the execs running this pig can pronounce it either.
 
Attache had 2 monthly features which I really miss (in order of preference):

1) Your Turn - I enjoyed reading actual letters from customers covering various issues of the operation (good and bad; usually bad), and the way in which US responded.

2) I forget the name of the column, but every month a different US frontline or behind-the-scenes worker was featured. This was a great way to provide some visibility to....the people who make US fly!

I use my flying time to catch up on my reading, so the only positive thing I have to say about US Airways Magazine is that it's one less thing I have to read inflight!
 
I rather enjoyed reading the Southwest Airlines in-flight magazine, and they fly to some of the most boring destinations imaginable.
 

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