As you know, I have a great love for the Sky Mall. I've visited it a few times on these pages:
Here: For the "Seed of Life" shoes.
Here: For the remote control spider.
Here: For Hagrid's folding chair.
Here: For adult footie pajamas.
Those catalogs kept me and millions upon millions of travelers amused on long airline flights. I looked through it on almost every flight. Never bought anything, mind you, but loved leafing through them. And that may be why they filed for bankruptcy. Lots of lookers, not enough buyers.
Some are blaming iPads and in-flight wi-fi for giving people other distractions in-flight, rather than purchasing a rain coat for their dogs. I think it's a bit more like the Sears Christmas Wish Book. The times are changing, and people have new ways to find useless junk, wherever they are. It's called the "internet". It has places like, Think Geek, eBay, Amazon, and of course…
SkyMall. As of right now, it is still functioning as an on line store.
One company that may now be so sad to go is American Airlines (and all the others that carried the catalog). They may save about $350,000 in fuel, not dragging those dead trees around (Wired).
But then again, if we are now all dragging around iPads and laptops, there goes the savings.
Maybe that's why, even with fuel costs plummeting to around $50 a barrel, they still have all the baggage fees in place that they put in place when oil shot up to $100 a barrel.
