I’m a small shareholder in 1Time airline, and have watched 1Time’s share price climb leading up to the World Cup soccer, and fall ever since. The company now has a market cap of around R80 Million. (at time of writing).

To me, that’s a really low valuation for a such a large company, so I started thinking about how they can make additional revenue if they really started thinking of innovative “out of the box” ideas.

So here’s an idea for 1Time - why don’t you start generating revenue from media activities?

Now before I start, I have to admit that I’ve got no idea whether there are legalities that airlines have to adhere to, and perhaps this just isn’t possible.

There are a couple ideas that immediately come to mind:

1. Internet monetization - AFTER people book flights, take them to a portal with quality content (suggestions for flying, how now to fear flying etc etc) with advertising on the pages
2. Advertising on the outside of the planes
3. Brochures in the pocket on every seat
4. TV screens showing advertising
5. Advertising on the back of the seats
6. Advertising on the pull out trays
7. Advertising on the food trolley’s
8. Advertising on the food from the food trolley’s

I’m sure there will be lots of people who get irritated by having more advertising thrown in their faces, but lets look at this in a different way.

1Time needs to generate more revenue. And they do have multiple flights flying per day, with hundreds of people on every flight.

How many people do they have flying every day? I haven’t worked out the stats, but I can guess that they get at least 5000 people flying with them every day.

That’s 150,000 people every month, and even assuming that everyone flies twice per month on average, that’s still 75,000 people flying on the airline per month.

That’s a pretty big number isn’t it? 75,000 mid to high LSM’s that 1Time have in a specific place for a few hours each month, with no-where to go!

1time’s options for generating additional revenue from media are:

1. A number of moving billboards
2. A potential Internet monetization strategy AFTER people book flights with them
3. Multiple media placements on board the planes, to a captive audience who fly with them

Surely there is a way for 1Time to generate income from media in addition to flights?

Will people really stop flying with them if advertising appears throughout the planes? I’m not sure that this will really happen! I think people are price sensitive, and if the prices compete with the other airlines, people will continue using them even if their is advertising.

In fact, if the advertising is done in clever ways, it can actually add entertainment value to people during the flights.

So here’s my idea for 1Time:

Lead generation for non competing companies

Offer a screen on each seat, where people flying can find interesting companies, and then request that these companies contact them. And if they request that the companies contact them via the system, they get entered into competitions. A partnership between a “lead generation with prizes” company like JustPlay & 1Time can be a winner for both companies.

Can companies such as low cost airlines start generating significant revenue streams from media? What do you think?