The history of duty free begins in 1947 at Shannon International Airport in Ireland, where prop aircraft had to make a technical stop and pax had to disembark. Brendan O'Regan got the idea @:-) of selling Irish linens, glassware, woolens, etc. at "duty free" prices and eventually both airlines and airports followed. <link> it was a great idea, and bored passengers eagerly bought Irish goods not found in their local department stores.

In 1960, two Americans concocted the DFS empire. Earlier Duty Free shops were limited to departing travellers; now, many airports have added duty free shopping for arriving airports, and added gantlets of duty free (and other) shopping for passengers to pass through regardless of whether they were interested or not, and I'm sure much was impulse buying.

Airlines strived to offer more and more, particularly in high markup items like perfumes, colognes, beauty products, etc. I'm sure they made some money in the arrangements with the now very consolidated duty free suppliers, but these days passengers are saturated with shopping possibilities. Not to mention you can find more exotic and international products locally, and if not certainly online.

Sometimes the passenger experience begins with the duty free shopping gantlet (DFW never really got into the act here), the airport shopping emporia (think LHR T-5 or FCO, and these are small potatoes these days), the unimaginative onboard duty free catalogue selling the same items you just turned your nose up at, and perhaps another duty free gantlet upon arrival. And by now, if you consume those products, you know you can get them cheaper at home or online.

Diminishing returns for the airline, distractions from work-related activities for cabin crew (for some, non-work related activities ), and the whole megillah of tracking inventory, sales, receipts, card processing, posting points and trucking the weighty carts around the skies.

How are you gonna keep 'em down on the farm (or shopping on the plane) once they've seen online shopping (and Total Wines )?

AA was finally smart: in-air catalogues, in-air duty (not markup or profit) free shopping, goodbye and good riddance. And it wasn't Mr. Arpey or Mr. Horton who cut these, it was Mr. Parker and his team, perhaps armed with sharper pencils...