Flying in Magazine Heaven

East/West Network rules the friendly skies of in-flight monthlies

You're strapped into an aisle seat on he 7 a.m. flight from LAX to ORD, and the baby next to you is screaming, and the turbulence is causing your stomach to bathe your just consumed sausage links and hash browns in acid, and you don't know how you're going to get through the next 4% hrs. because it's too early for a martini, and besides, you want to throw up. So you reach for that little paper bag in the seat-back pocket, and, hello! What's this? A slick, thick, technicolor magazine throbbing with lively articles on travel, finance, health, law, politics. You become so engrossed in a piece on the revitalized riverfront in SAT that you don't notice when the left wing . . .

In-flight magazines, those airline-sponsored throwaways, used to be as bland and insubstantial as inflight food. Now they are expensively produced, professionally edited and immensely prosperous. Ten leading airline monthlies last year carried advertising worth $20 million, or double the amount three years ago.

The pilot of those ten gravy planes and the man most responsible for the in-flight magazine industry's takeoff is Jeffrey S. Butler, 39. A onetime Pacific Southwest Airlines public relations director, Butler made a previous contribution to aviation history by outfitting PSA stewardesses in tangerine-colored hot pants. When PSA balked at his plan to put out an in-flight magazine, he formed East/West Network, Inc. Butler gradually picked up other clients, and today the Los Angeles-based firm publishes magazines for PSA, Allegheny, Continental, Eastern, Hughes Airwest, Ozark, Pan Am, Southern, Texas International and United.* East/West figures that last year a total of 10 million passengers read the magazines each month. Combined revenues were $20 million, and profits were about $2 million.

Until East/West came along, in-flight magazines were generally soporific collections of restaurant hosannas, travel columns and self-serving airline news. Says Butler: "Passengers felt cheated. They'd pick up a story about bananas, but by the third paragraph they'd be reading about how many bananas the airline carried in its cargo hold."

So in 1976, Butler opened an editorial office in New York City and hired Fred R. Smith, 53, a longtime editor of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, to put some quality into East/West. Smith has cut reliance on "destination stories," puff pieces on locales served by client airlines, in favor of more substantial fare: the perils of cosmetic surgery (in PSA's California), the burgeoning world of electronic communications (United's Mainliner), the apocalyptic risks of unloading liquefied gas near urban centers (California). East/West pays writers a relatively modest $400 to $600 for a major piece, but can muster more for big names like George Plimpton, Vance Packard and Henry Steele Commager. Lavish color reproductions from coffee-table art books and excerpts from novels such as The Coup by John Updike and Whistle by James Jones provide cultural ballast. Editor Smith and his 20-member staff produce 800 editorial pages a month, and only East/West's Flightime group (Allegheny, Continental, Ozark and Southern) ever use the same material. Says Smith: "The airlines are as jealous and protective of their magazines as they are of the uniforms on their flight attendants."

East/West currently pays five airlines for the right to publish their magazines (top fee: $25,000 a month to United), while no money changes hands with the other five. Butler is negotiating new contracts under which all ten airlines would receive a percentage of ad revenue. That filial bond between East/West and its clients can make the skies a little too friendly. The airlines screen virtually every article, exercising veto power when they fear patrons might be offended. One airline nixed an article that advised readers how to avoid using lawyers, in deference to those frequent travelers. The magazines seldom go near the issue of aviation safety. And the airlines dictate what locations to highlight in travel stories.

Many articles are pitched to businessmen, and for good reason: more than two-thirds of the readers are managers or professionals, and the median income is better than $34,000. "The demographics of those passengers up there in the sky Lare so special, we couldn't buy them down here on the ground," says Butler. The readership is also predominantly male, though the percentage of women air travelers has Ingrown from less than 20% five years ago to 35% today. So East/West this month launched a new quarterly supplement called "Scoops," 24 pages of articles aimed at women.

As befits a man of his wealth, Butler conducts business from behind an imposing (5 ft. by 9 ft.) mahogany desk that spent 100 of its 250 years in No. 10 Downing Street. He surrounds himself with expensive antiques and often turns up on international best-dressed lists. His newly acquired 15-room house near Beverly Hills commands an unobstructed view of the San Bernardino Mountains on one side and the Pacific on the other. Says Butler: "My wife is always kidding me that I don't feel comfortable in a house unless the view resembles the one out an airplane window." If Jeffrey Butler had his way, however, airline passengers would be too preoccupied with his products to notice that view.

*East/West's main competitor, Webb Co. of St. Paul, produces TWA's Ambassador, Northwest's Passages and Frontier's Frontiers. American, Delta and National handle their own publications.

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