Starting today, Delta Airlines customers checking in online for Las Vegas will see something more than their flight information on their boarding pass; Ads.Perhaps you want information on the David Copperfield magic performance or details on current Cirque du Soleil shows. All of this - and more, on your boarding pass.
While some airlines are flying off into a direction of electronic boarding passes - dumping the paper all together, Delta Airlines is taxiing on with the good old fashioned paper boarding passes, just now exercising a creative use. Sure they are making a few bucks on the ads, but they claim to also be offering a service to passengers, particularly last minute folks, who don't necessarily have the time to research their destination before hoping on the plane. And let's face it, with airlines cutting back on inflight entertainment, raising the price of food and liquid and filling the planes to capacity, maybe these advertisements will keep passengers occupied in flight.
But love it or hate it, almost all Delta passengers will face it. By the end of the week, Delta will expand the ads so virtually everyone printing a domestic boarding pass at home will find advertisements batched with boarding passes. The company behind the technology says however that passengers will have an opt out box should they decide not to print out the ads.
Northwest and U.S Airways stated they too will begin boarding pass advertisements by year end as well.