Steven Levitt, of Freakonmics fame, blogged yesterday about his invitation to be interviewed by Sky Radio Network, airing on American Airlines. Although accustomed to turning down dozens of interview requests a week, he decided that he would agree to this interview request. That is, until he realized that this was not an interview request, but a sales pitch to get a sound bite delivered to a captive audience under the auspices of journalism. Dr. Levitt was afforded the opportunity to pay just $3,995 to get his interview aired on AA via Sky Radio Network’s programming.

All of my flying over the past several years has pretty much been limited to short haul flights on so-called regional airlines, so Sky Radio Network was new to me. Jumping over to their website you are instantly greeted with a long list of prominent personalities and the ability to listen to their interviews. Had I just stumbled upon the site, my first impression may have been that I found a treasure trove of information, but, finding it as I did, my first thought was “Wow! Look at all these people who shelled out four grand to make an infomercial!”. However, given some of the names on the homepage, I think it’s a safe bet that not all the interviews were paid for by the interviewee. And therein lies the problem: if you can’t tell the difference between an interview and an infomercial, the the credibility of all of them becomes suspect. My guess is that the masking of the fact that the “interviews” are paid for by the interviewee is part of Sky Radio Network’s business plan. To be fair, at the bottom of each web page the statement “Guests on our shows may have paid a fee to appear.” can be found. How many of you frequently read the footers of webpages?

I just listened to about 15 minutes of “Radio Entrepreneur” as broadcast by Sky Radio Networks on American Airlines, and I have it say it was a little painful. It started out decent enough, with what was probably a “real” interview, but then turned into a series of infomercial-esque “interviews”. One was particularly amusing at the “interviewer” said something like “this is exciting” in a dead monotone voice. I’m sure it’s pretty obvious to most people that these interviews are really advertisements, but no where in the programming was that explicitly made clear.

It is easy to see how Sky Radio Network is attractive to the airlines. As airlines become more savvy at finding and exploiting “ancillary” revenue streams, getting paid to broadcast radio programming on flights is a great proposition. My initial line of thought was that American Airlines, or any other airline broadcasting this programming, could be adversely affecting by associating their name with the broadcast. However, I think that is really pretty unlikely given what I just listened to, just like I doubt a passenger would look down on an airline for making the Home Shopping Network available through a seat-back TV.

Perhaps Sky Radio Network and/or American Airlines should reconsider their existing model. Obviously there is a market where passengers will pay to listen to or watch CNBC or ESPN, but ad-supported broadcasting on airlines likely has more potential than is currently being exploited. I’ve stared at a moving map display in the seatback of a Frontier flight for hours because I was too cheap to pay for the programming, but I would have happily sat through commercials in order to have something free to listen to or watch. Likewise, I’m sure a lot of passengers would be interested in hearing a thoughtful interview of Steven Levitt, and he was there for the taking until he was asked for $3,995.

I just got home from Oshkosh and am in a pretty somber state as a pilot was killed today during the air show. “Precious Metal 57″ crashed while landing and its pilot killed after the simulated Reno air race. The photo at left was taken as Precious Metal 57 taxied by before taking off for the demonstration. Precious Metal 57 was landing with a P-51D when the accident occurred. I was about 1/3rd down the runway (runway 36) and had sat back down in my chair as the show was in between acts and the racers were coming in to land. I heard the crowd gasp and caught a glimpse of the fireball out of the corner of my eye. I stood up in time to see the P-51D nosing over (photo below right) . At the time, I didn’t even realize there was another airplane involved beside the P-51D. The smoke in the right side of the photo is Precious Metal 57. The guy sitting in front of me recorded the whole incident so it wasn’t until he replayed it that I saw what happened. At first, I thought the pilot of 57 might be OK, but after seeing the video I realized that was unlikely. It wasn’t until just a few minutes ago that I got confirmation from the news. I’m still not really sure what happened. Initially, I thought that it looked like the pilot of 57 realized he was way too close to the P-51D right before touchdown, pulled up hard and winged over. He hit the grass beside the runway inverted and hard. However, the FAA seems to be confirming that the two Mustangs did, in fact, collide, and if you look at the big version of the picture there appears to be some large gashes in the fuselage of the P-51D that seem to indicate a prop strike.

The runway was obviously shut down immediately and rescue vehicles were on scene pretty quickly. The pilot of the P-51D was out of his plane just a few seconds after I took that photo and he ran strait over to 57. I can’t imagine that they were strangers. A forklift was on scene within a few minutes to get under the overturned aircraft but apparently to no avail. The ambulance turned around and drove lazily back across the airfield empty handed.

I was sickened by the accident, then subsequently a bit disturbed by the crowd as a mass of people headed to the south end of the runway and everyone around me instantly became an subject matter expert on everything from airport management to fire fighting. Human nature, I guess. Saddened, I collected my things and wandered my up to the north end of the field and took shelter under the shade provided by the wing of a B-17G. Amazingly, EAA got permission to continue the air show. Traffic was shifted to runway 9. The accident occurred close enough to the end of runway 36 (an 8,000 foot runway) that the powers-that-be deemed it safe to continue, which I guess is almost unheard of.

Sad day. My thoughts and prayers go out to those affected. I’ll make another post later about the more pleasant aspects of the show.

Update 7/28: CNN.com has a few pictures of the accident here.

CNBC just had a live update from Toulouse, France, that EADS, parent company of Airbus, has announced that they have abandoned their dual-CEO, dual-chairman structure, naming Louis Gallois, of France, as the CEO of EADS and Ruediger Grube, of Germany, as the Chairman, while Thomas Enders, also German, will assume the role of CEO of Airbus. The AP news article can be found here.

This is almost certainly a long overdue move, and quite frankly, EADS should have been smart enough to never set up such a structure to begin with. I believe that most execs would aggree that “co-” anything is almost always a bad idea, as “by committee” is a corporate euphemism for indecisive, unaccountable, and just generally bad.

This is a timely news item for me, as I just started reading John Newhouse’s Boeing Versus Airbus, and the EADS corporate structure is discussed in Chapter 1.

What will be the impact of this? In theory, it should allow for a more decisive EADS that can enact changes more quickly. However, only time will tell, and I suspect that, given EADS multi-national interests, the turf wars are not over and Mr. Gallois will still have his politicking cut out for him.

Big changes here at www.ChrisKerns.com which I’ve decided to dedicate to my professional endeavors. Specifically, I have chosen to redirect my career towards the business of aviation and launch a blog to that effect. For friends and family, my old website and blog have simply be moved over to http://family.chriskerns.com and if you want a more personal discussion about the reasons behind this change, you’ll find that information over there (in good time).

“Planes to Profit” is my new public outlet for my thoughts and observations on aviation business. The unifying theme will be the study of generating profits from the operation of aircraft. As such, this will focus largely on the airline business, although cargo operators, fractional jets, and even business aviation are fair game. Aircraft manufacturers, such as Boeing and Airbus, are not my focus but are obviously a critical component of the industry and will therefore come up from time to time. Indeed, one of the most interesting aviation topics of discussion right now is the war being waged between the two industry giants and the impact that will have on the future of air transport. Specific topics will likely focus on a range of issues including marketing, strategic planning, labor relations, executive management, operations, competition, pricing, technology and equipment. Indeed, the very same topics that apply to any business, just with a slant towards aviation.

I do not profess to be a Subject Matter Expert on the aviation industry at the time of this writing, but am determined to change that. Regardless, I will no hesitate to make public my analysis and opinions on the industry. Undoubtedly I will say things that time will prove wrong, but that’s what will hopefully keep things interesting. If you disagree with me, please let me know! Feedback via blog comments are welcome and encouraged and the resulting conversation should prove, hopefully, but informative and interesting.

So, here I stand at the threshold of a new endeavor. Excited about the future, yet anxious about making a fool of myself. I hope that I can contribute meaningfully the discussion of the business of aviation.