Adam Smith

Another update to AC's service offerings in the COVID-19 world: I got a copy of April's enRoute in the mail today. Anyone else get it?

I presume they figure it's better to spend some money on mailing them out rather than letting them go to waste. I also wonder whether this saves them from having to reimburse any of their advertisers?

TheCanuckian

Yeah, I got mine in today's mail. I rather appreciate it…

Adam Smith

I just realized that while I got a copy of enRoute in the mail the other day, my wife (50K status) didn't. Are those receiving them only SEs? Or are they just limiting it to one copy per household?

Bohemian1

I got one. Ms. Boh didn't. Same pattern as you.

So we need a household with at least two SEs to figure this out.

24left

I did not receive one.

canadiancow

Neither the bovine nor I have received one... yet

mountainboy

Household of two SEs here. Two magazines arrived on the same day. Happy to satisfy the group curiosity.

Jebby_ca

No enRoute for this SE either.

Plumber

Got one in YOW a week ago.

I thought it was nice to receive it.

Fiordland

They could easily print fewer of them. I have a feeling it has more to do with keeping the advertisers happy and keeping AC front of mind for all the frequent flyers who someday will want to fly again.

Adam Smith

There's a significant lead time to these things; the April print run was already committed long before the extent of the reduction in flying became clear. So no, they can't "easily print fewer of them", not in the short term. They evidently decided it was better to mail them out than send them all to be recycled. I don't know exactly what lead time they have or what the arrangements are with the printers and just when they might be able to cut back the print runs without incurring significant costs; 24left may have some idea on that. But I wouldn't be surprised to see at least the May issue get mailed out as well.

For whatever it's worth, I got a copy of the WS magazine in the mail yesterday too.

24left

Here is the link to the enRoute media kit. For those of you who are interested, you can see how they define their customer/audience (both in text and chart forms), overall and for the magazine, for eg.

As for lead time for publication and commitment from advertisers, for the April issue, ad closing and material due date was February 28 - which you can see if you scroll way down to the magazine section of this website. There may have been an advertiser who cancelled before deadline, or cancelled after but with a penalty, but if the bookings were made and the publication went to press as per arrangement with the printer, it made sense for them to be mailed out as @Adam Smith said.

Also, to the left of the closing dates, you can see the ad rates based on single or multiple bookings as well las page location (IBC = inside back cover, OBC = outside back cover and so on. These are premium locations compared to a page inside the magazine.)

While you're all scrolling take a good look at ALL of the different media and sites and formats that AC uses to reach you, their customer.

https://enroute.aircanada.com/files/...e-Mediakit.pdf
.

Adam Smith

Great post I love these (somewhat rare) occasions when some of us are able to use our non-IT professional expertise around here

tcook052

So presumably an end-March deadline for the May issue should've been enough time to hold the presses and stop printing a full run of the magazine but wonder if that call was made. Guess we see if the editions begin arriving in mailboxes next month.

Adam Smith

It's an interesting question. At the end of March, AC was still somewhat bullish about the schedule normalizing somewhat by late April, so even if they did a reduced print run, they may still have a bunch of copies. The other question is what their contract is like with whoever prints it for them, as well as the advertisers. If they've already taken the advertisers' money, and are committed to paying the printer whether they print it or not, they may just run it anyway and mail it out. If they have lots of flexibility in those deals, then maybe they shut it down altogether.