THERE is a window of time between shoehorning oneself into seat 237C and the precise moment the wheels leave the ground. The first minutes of climbing, with seat angle just so and general quietude prevailing, are peak sleep-time for Gulliver. But one must stay awake until then, and for that, on American carriers anyway, there was always the SkyMall catalogue.
For the uninitiated, SkyMall was the airborne version of the direct mail-order catalogues that once blighted mailboxes but were a godsend for shut-ins and the lazy. For the posh and those who liked superlatives, there was Sharper Image. For the rugged or those who wanted to be seen as such, there was Sierra Trading Post. And for a reported 88% of people who take American domestic flights—650m a year—there was SkyMall.
It carved out an odd niche, selling a staggering range of banal, clever and patently ridiculous things. In the pre-internet era, the promise of goods waiting for the purchaser upon landing seemed like black magic (Larger items, like Boris the Brontosaurus, $1,950, pictured...Continue reading
Source :Business and finance http://ift.tt/1JXkDVe
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