Flight International for better or for worse?
 

Maybe its just me and im sure some of you will disagree. But has Flight International become both boring and bad value for money?

I remember the days when I would beat a path to my newsagents every wednesday to get the latest AIRLINE news and jobs from a much thicker lump of paper.

Now for £2.40 I get a wafer thin rag that sheds little light on whats happening with the airlines and gives less than one page to letters from its loyal readers. And they have reduced the quality of the paper on which it is printed.

FI quotes that they have over 300,000 readers, the vast majority of which I'm sure are pilots. So why don't they cater for the majority and leave the space and defence to more appropiate titles or at least cut down and cover more commercial pilot related topics.

I get more info once a month from the glossy yet informative Ailiner World magazine than four issues of Flight which I only buy now for the jobs section.

Anyone miss the old Flight or is it just me?
:mad: :( :mad: :( :mad: :(

Can't agree with you more! I think the only reason why Flight is still circulating is because of the aircrew notices in the classified section!

I personally think that airliner world is far better, especially the special issues like the latest one on the Airbus family! :cool:

Flaps to60...

After 20 odd years I too have let my subscription lapse for exactly the reasons you've mentioned.

Skyport (free and out today BTW) offers more "airline news" and the best place for jobs, or at least early news of them, is right here, at PPruNe.

Rgds BEX

It may be a bit boring but I agree as well.
Why not change it to once a fortnight, get rid of space and defence, and reduce it's price to an affordable £1.50?
I know they would sell more copies, which would then generate more advertising revenue.

I always thought it was an oddly placed magazine. Although the market is flooded with mags of all descriptions, I'm sure there is room for an international pro pilots twice monthly rag with features that matter to us, advertising that targets pilots (pensions/cars/property etc rather than Ariane rockets).

August is traditionally a slim month, but the latest issue is shameful.

Rod

Change to Aviation Week & Space Technology for better up to date info. Go To:web page :cool:

[ 10 August 2001: Message edited by: GlueBall ]

QUOTE
FI quotes that they have over 300,000 readers, the vast majority of which I'm sure are pilots. So why don't they cater for the majority and leave the space and defence to more appropiate titles or at least cut down and cover more commercial pilot related topics.
UNQUOTE

Why do you assume that Flight International is solely directed at pilots and they're the largest reader group. There's a vast number of aviation profesionals who aren't pilots which have both a personal and business interest in the wide range of articles the FI publishes.

Do pilots really think they're the only audience for aviation news?
:eek:

Yes I wont be renewing either

FlightPlanMan,

On a scale from 1 - 10 (10 being top) I give you an 8 for your comment.

Having said that, FI must be the only magazine I start reading from the back page. I admit that the classified section is the most interesting with FI. And since Ariane rockets are way down on my list, may be I should drop FI and go for aviationjobs.com.

I too have been very disapointed with the last 3 or 4 editions of FI. I wouldnt say they are thin, more like anorexic!!

Some of the other mags are good, but the problem is that when something big is on, they all cover it, and then do so for at least 3 months take for example the paris airshow!

David Learmount is a member of this board, maybe he could comment on what has happened with FI in the past few years.

P.S. Where do I get a copy of Skyport?

Have to say I won`t be renewing my subs next time around. When it fails to show up I dont miss it, when it does I`m done with it in about three minutes. Interestingly I found a 1968 copy for 20p recently with a review of the new Jetstream 31, and have been reading it for weeks. It feels as though it was written by genuine aviation enthusiasts and not post grad buisness majors with a very minor in commercial journalism. The new format stinks but pales in comparison to the content. FI have indeed lost the plot.

Have to say that I think flaps to 60 has a very valid point. For many years I had a subscription to ‘Aviation Week and Space Technology’, but dropped that in favour of ‘Flight’ because it was concentrating far too much (for my taste) on rocketry, space exploration etc rather than aeroplanes – sorry ‘airplanes’.

Now FI is going very much the same way. I seriously considered not renewing my subscription last time and think things will have to have changed rather dramatically for me to pay up next time.

It might have been that I was preoccupied at the time, but I scanned the last issue in a matter of minutes and didn’t find an article that I read beyond the first couple of paragraphs.

(I still always start at the back page though. It’s almost a ‘secret handshake’ in a newsagent, isn’t it? [“Ahh, another pilot!”])

For any of you struggling with the price of a subscription to Flight, don't forget that you get a discount if you are a member of the IPA.

It seems that I'm not the only one who feels sick paying the cost of an overpriced pint, for something that a few of you have commented "takes a few minutes to read".

Even if (FlightPlanMan) in the unlikely event that the majority of readers are not pilots then they should stick to AEROPLANES and thier associated industries and not what the Hubble telescope is looking at or which missles are being developed.

Out of the sixty pages in this weeks issue over 25% are adverts which leaves less than 45 pages for "News".
And of those 45, 7 are on defence and space plus another 2 on the Balkans!!!!!!
I can go on but what it boils down to is about 1/2 a page useful to me.

Would someone at FI like to wheel out David Learmont from his "Brake In Emergency" glass box and have him answer the comments from the people who put the clothes on his back.

The trick is to buy Flight on a three year subscription (about £120 for Balpa Members - from memory)and share it with your mates - costs about 25p a week; about what it's worth.
Anyone remember Aeroplane? It was taken over by Flight in 1968 that was a proper Civil Aviation Magazine.

If Danny put a link to his own Job Site he would really clean up. Make Flight wake up - or buy up!!

Happy to see I am not alone, I'll be cancelling mine too. Totally agree on lack of service and value!

The description "Thin" somes "Flight" up perfectly.
Its thin on information for airline pilots and thin on thickness.

S'funny that I have been quietly moaning about it for months, but thought it was just my opinion. I certainly won't be renewing my sub when it expires,

I go to WHSmiths read the back pages and put it back. its no good anymore lost the plot. :( :(

I think that EDDNR hit it on the head regarding the advetising. Is the target market a limited number like Sadam Hussein, or is it everyday people in the aircraft industry?

Once they get their marketing scheme going again in their advertising department toward their everyday target audience, then they will be able to afford more coverage of events and make the magazine slick again -- and probably more informative.

Fellow disgruntled readers
I have just e:mailed this thread and the following message to Murdo Morrison the editor of FI.

Mr. Morrison
I thought you might be interested in reading this web page:

You might like to reply to your obviously disgruntled readers and explain why FI is now an expensive joke.

please answer the following.

1) How do you justify such an expensive price for 45 pages of dubious quality reporting?

2) Why has the quality of the paper used been reduced to toilet paper yet the price increase?

3) Why are you now reporting on what appears to be everything except you once core subject?

4) Why must the letters you receive which I'm sure must be in the thousands only get one page (sometimes less)?

5) How many pilots write for you on a regular basis instead of "journalist"?

6) Why should I bother to buy Flight International anymore?

Hopefully this will start the return to the good old days and I can walk expectantly to my newsagents once again

Uncle Roger.

There, that's something in Flight worth reading.

... but he is on holiday a lot

... and I can't think of anything else

Sadly, after over 35 years as a subscriber to Flight, my subscription will be allowed to lapse at the next renewal. I really believed that retirement from aviation would happen before I gave up on Flight but it really has become such a sad reflection of its former self.

How sad too that the Editorial staff, and in particular David Learmont, have nothing whatsoever to say!

Scimatar,
I totally agree - why NO response from the team at FI, especially David Learmount?
Come on chaps give us some feedback, or are you all too embarrassed to reply on this forum. How can you ignore the comments here and the numerous intentions to cancel future subscriptions?
Maybe you are all too busy compiling another 10 page directory of APU fuel pump valve manufactuers........

:rolleyes:

Agree with Rover.I read it in Smiths every Tuesday then put it back unless there is something really interesting in it.
Who else sets really p****d off when they insist on wrapping it in a plastic bag?

Like the rest of you I found better magazines with better articles so I didn't renew my subscription.

And they still keep sending it to me!!! Now that it's free I can safely say it's as dull a read as it was when I paid for it. Wont miss it. In fact I barely notice it when it does turn up.

Long, long ago the parent company's research showed people in suits placed and paid for the ads - the big glossy ones that pay the real money. The magazine is now for the widgets to airframes aerospace industry.

Awards are given to people in suits by people in suits and it keeps the advertising rolling in and the magazine in business.

It's been that way for a long time - it's just that us knuckledragging pilots take a long time to realise the odd flight review and Uncle Roger writing as if the whole magazine is still intended for pilots are thrown in as a sop to try and keep us on board a little longer.

Oh, and don't assume the editorial types like it anymore than you do - they face the same commercial realities and pressures as we bemoan in our world as pilots.

Wise words PT. With that in mind I would like to change the last sentence of my first post, FI have not lost the plot, but merely changed it and we are no longer IN IT.!

flaps to 60,
For the same reason I have stopped buying (and sometimes just looking at) FI, I find I am strangely attracted to the fun glossiness of Airliner World.

FI seems to be more and more boring as time goes on, while at the same time having less and less in it worth reading (two separate statements I think).

So from no on, I think I will also follow this thread bandwagon and continue my recent trend reading AW for the more interesting articles.

Good point flaps260, I thought I was the only one.

Ez

Bex

Does Skyport have a web site or is it the free news paper given out around Heathrow...cheers.

Ez
I think the comments from the others proves "We're not alone".

sky9
Good idea about Danny starting up a job website. It would be free, high quality and above all up to date.

What do you say Danny? I mean what would it take to set up. Most of the airlines recruiters look at this site, some even find out whats going on in thier own company on PPRuNe.

Think of it this way.
You will be saving us each the equivalent of some 50 odd pints a year by not having to buy the once excellent but now no more FI.

[ 11 August 2001: Message edited by: flaps to 60 ]

So you all just do what you have to do...
:cool:

PPRuNe Towers,

Understand what you said, but surely these same suits will STOP advertising IF the subscriber/reader base falls significantly because people are no longer as interested in the magazine?

Anyway after being a subscriber for as long as I can remember, have just recently refused to renew my subscription, still getting reminders.......

Best regards,

"lame"

Flaps to 60...(way too draggy for me BTW!!)

Skyport is indeed that free paper available at LHR (LGW has it's own weekly version), usually out on a Friday.

The LHR version always has some rant about Bus services or T5 on the letters page, but it DOES have a couple of pages on Airline News every week. And it's FREE. Don't have a copy with me at the moment so not sure about a web page.

Hope this helps

Rgds BEX

The truth of the matter is that Flight has not been interesting for a very long time. It leans quite heavily towards big business. Roger Bacon stoppped being funny a while ago. There are currently no magazines in this country that cater for the average pilot. The average pilot nowadays flys a 737 or some other three letter number and does not care about he latest type of missile. This arhaic bias towards the military is as outdated as those posh English accents on old black and white newsreels.
Some

Another point to remember is that Flight have a lot of 'give-away'copies for the industries that the advertising is aimed at, it is aimed at major league sellers and buyers, not us, the flying.Ops/engineering fraternity, anymore.

Yes after 32 years of buying FI I think my money would be better spent on Airliner World. Does anyone have a website/address please? Thaks.

I have to agree with addinfurnightem....I've been buying Flight for 33 years, this last format change sealed it for me and I don't intend on renewing my subscription.
The magazine has been changed to a format that is not really aimed for the aviation minded but for the big end of town! :mad:
If the magazine continues in the manner that PPRuNe Towers suggests, then they will end up with a publication that just prints adverts and has few readers!
It would be good to see a responce from the magazine or even better, a change back to what it was 10 years ago!

[ 12 August 2001: Message edited by: Offchocks ]

I only read FI because of the back pages. Been doing that for years.

Personally I gave up Flight 6 years ago, for all the reasons mentioned above, in favour of Airliner World.

Click the hyperlink for the website to Airliner World

FYI, and on the subject of advertising versus revenue, in order for Flight to be able to say to an advertiser that they have a circulation of such-and-such (which greatly influences the advertisement pricing / yield - about which PPRuNeTowers so succinctly wrote previously) they have to be able to prove it with some degree of certainty, and to that end there are organisations that independently verify that what they say is indeed true, e.g. The International Federation of Audit Bureaux of Circulations - it's amazing what you can find out on PPRuNe, ain't it ?!

Ps. Who else remembers that old joke of Q). Who're the only people who read Flight from the front ? A). BA Training Captains !

If Flight International has indeed retargeted itself at big business then its on a hiding to nothing. Big business reads Air Transport World - free to the selected and chock full of interesting airline related stuff.

The only part of F.I. that sells copy is the job pages. Its just a matter of time before it peters out and joins John Bull, Woman's Realm and the other worn out magazines that couldn't keep up with a changing world. We were most amused over here at the Flight International Awards when Brunei Shell Aviation won an award - presumably for its hugely successful downsizing operation? :rolleyes:

**********************************
Through difficulties to the cinema

On the subject of nostalgia and the great days of Flight:

Is there anyone who preserved the wonderful line ad during the last great hiring boom in the late 1980's?

An utter classic windup wherein a pilot advertised for airlines to apply to him advising salary, conditions and enclosing photocopies of their last three year's accounts.

It's not an apochryphal tale told over a pint - I used to have the page torn out but somewhere, during some move or another, it went AWOL. I'd love to be able to pass it on to the huddled masses here. :D :D

Aeroplane Magazine is still circulating. Lots of mags have gone the way of FI. Shame. Give us info we want to read, not info that will be useful to our great-grandchildren when they fly their stratospheric rocket liners.

Kermie :mad: