Airline retail media projections are getting bigger. Here's how to tell if yours is credible.

Airlines are being shown large retail media revenue projections, and it isn't always clear what sits behind them. Take an airline carrying 30 million passengers a year. Some projections start with that number, apply a market-level assumption about what each passenger is worth, and arrive at a total that looks transformational on a slide.

The problem is that passengers don't buy advertising, advertisers do. What an airline can realistically earn depends on how many advertisers want to reach its audience, which of them it can work with, what they'll spend, and whether the media gives them a reason to invest.

A credible projection starts there, then works through how those advertisers will be sold to, how they'll measure results, and what inventory is needed to support them. As connectivity rolls out across airline fleets, how a projection is built matters more than ever.

"Anyone can create almost infinite inventory. But if advertisers don't want that audience, or can't use that inventory, you could have all the inventory in the world and it won't make any money," says Stuart Adamson, CEO and Founder of Platform 195.

Start with who will buy

The realistic advertiser base for an airline's audience is usually narrower than it first appears. Some advertisers will be ruled out by brand fit or regulation. Others are closed off by existing commercial agreements, where exclusive partnerships in categories such as car hire, insurance, or hotels remove natural buyers entirely.

Internal priorities matter too. Ecommerce and loyalty teams have worked hard to capture and retain customers, and advertising that sends passengers away from the airline's own site or app can create real tension with those objectives.

The rules that come out of those internal discussions decide which advertisers can be approached and where their ads can appear, so a credible forecast needs to account for this before assigning revenue to anything.

Then there's the audience itself. A full-service carrier with a long-haul, premium-heavy passenger base will attract different advertisers, at different prices, from a low-cost carrier carrying the same number of passengers.

Scale matters as well, because larger brands need enough reach to justify adding a new channel. Passenger volume tells you how big an audience is, but it can't tell you what that audience is worth to advertisers.

Treat endemic and non-endemic as different businesses

Endemic advertisers, such as tourism boards, hotel groups, attractions, and experiences, have a natural reason to reach travellers while they plan a trip, travel, or arrive at a destination. Non-endemic brands in consumer goods, finance, technology, or luxury face a different decision, because airline media competes with every other place they could spend their budget.

Because they buy for different reasons, with different budgets, buying processes, and expectations around measurement, the two groups need different go-to-market strategies, each with its own sales approach, relationships, and case for investment.

A single outsourced sales team covering every sector is unlikely to do either well at scale, and a single blanket figure for non-endemic revenue doesn't tell you enough. A credible projection shows who will sell to each group, how many advertisers can realistically be won and retained, and the team needed to deliver their campaigns.

Ask how advertisers will measure it

Most advertising budgets need to show a return, so measurability is part of the value of the media itself. An ad in a Wi-Fi portal or the digital booking journey can be tracked through a click, booking, or purchase. Pre-roll on an inflight entertainment screen is harder to tie to an outcome, and a branded aircraft harder still.

Those formats still have value, but they compete for brand budgets, which are harder to win at scale, particularly from non-endemic advertisers. Inflight screen advertising has more in common with cinema than television. It offers a captive audience that earns a place in the mix, without the reach that makes TV a core line on large media plans.

“A projection that assumes non-endemic brands will commit significant spend to formats they can't measure deserves a hard look,” says Stuart.

Then map what can actually be sold

Once realistic demand is clear, inventory becomes the next constraint. In year one, only some passengers may fly on connected aircraft, only some of those will use the touchpoints that carry advertising, and only part of that inventory will sell.

Campaign lead times, brand standards, and data permissions narrow it further. The opportunity grows as more aircraft connect, more passengers engage, and the commercial team gets better at selling, which is upside an airline can plan for.

Broaden the advertisers and the moments you sell

There's a limit to what passenger scale and inflight inventory alone can support. If the advertiser base is constrained and formats are hard to measure, adding impressions won't close the gap.

The picture changes when airlines look beyond the cabin, broadening both the advertisers they work with and the moments they can sell. Endemic advertisers have a natural reason to reach travellers, and pre-flight booking and other digital channels reach passengers while they're actively planning and spending, with outcomes that are far easier to measure.

Done well, these channels let an airline monetise customer intent without pulling customers out of its own booking journey, and keep the onboard environment curated for the partners who fit it best. Combine them with inflight media, and a credible projection can get close to some of those larger numbers.

Five questions to ask of any forecast

These will tell you most of what you need to know about any projection you're shown, including ours.

1. Which advertisers could realistically buy this, and what brand, regulatory, or partner restrictions narrow that list?

2. How is revenue split between endemic and non-endemic advertisers, and how will each be sold?

3. How will advertisers measure the return on each format, and which budgets will those formats compete for?

4. What inventory generates the revenue across booking, digital, and inflight channels, and how does it grow as connectivity rolls out?

5. What advertiser acquisition, sell-through, and pricing assumptions are used, and what evidence supports them?

How to build a projection you can stand behind

At Platform 195, we start with demand, which advertisers have a reason to reach the airline's audience, what restrictions apply, and how each segment can realistically be sold and measured.

We then map the inventory that can actually be sold across booking, digital, and inflight channels, and build the projection from the bottom up, so every assumption is open to challenge.

Ambitious assumptions are perfectly reasonable when they're visible and evidenced. The problem is a number nobody can explain, and the cost of getting it wrong is real.

"The worst thing you can do to a promising media business is give it a forecast it was never going to hit. It can be doing genuinely well and still look like it's failing," says Stuart.

If you’re weighing up a retail media projection right now, Cleared for take-off, our guide to airline retail media in the connected aircraft era, goes further on several points here, from the exclusivity clauses that can cap media revenue to building a route to market and growing beyond the cabin. Its 8-point readiness check is a quick way to see where your airline is likely to hit friction. Download the guide, or if you’ve been shown a projection and want a second view, come and talk to us.

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