While other airlines are waiting for tax relief to help their short haul flights thrive, Horizon Air has decided to go on the offensive with a great marketing campaign.

Short haul flights have struggled as airport security requirements have become more and more annoying and time consuming. People just don’t want to deal with the hassle of limiting liquids, waiting in long lines, and sitting in weather delays for a higher cost than just driving yourself, especially when the drive isn’t much longer than the flight.

You’d think that Horizon would be hit pretty hard with this shift, especially on their bread and butter route from Portland to Seattle - the Horizon Air Shuttle. The drive is 174 miles from downtown to downtown, so driving should be far easier than flying, but Horizon’s new campaign plays on the “horrors” you’ll find while driving through what they call The Slog.

They have apparently channeled Ken Burns for this “documentary” (I still can’t get that music from The Civil War of my head) about the mythical drive on I-5 between Seattle and Portland. If you head to the site, you’ll see an overview video about why you should fly, but then they have short snippets on points along the way that’ll make you cringe. The beauty of this is that it talks about specific points on the drive that probably exist on every route around the country, so even if you don’t drive this particular route you’ll find the videos amusing.

There’s Ticketown - the speedtrap where all the tickets issued if lined end to end would stretch to Mars three times over. And don’t forget Filthy John’s Holler where the bathrooms are so dirty, possibly because the only mop there was lost decades ago. The worst? How about Crab Apple Flats - mile 95 where you lose one lane on the road and it results in horrible backups that test the wills of all who pass.

I can’t remember having driven this road myself, but I can certainly relate because they’re problems we all face somewhere. When they contrast this with Horizon’s half hourly flights that have now seen unrestricted fares lowered to $99 each way, those flights start to sound a lot better. In fact, I’ve got a driving trip to Vegas next weekend, and it’s made me cross my fingers for a last minute flight deal. (Not holding my breath)

Not sure why, but some of my readers don’t seem to like my happy, kudos-filled posts like the Delta one from last week. I guess you’re looking for more CRANKY. With that in mind, I’ll be happy to oblige this morning.

I may like what Delta has been doing online lately, but I really can’t stand their billboard campaign. For months, there’s been this one billboard on Century Blvd, just east of LAX, that has taunted me. I finally snapped a shot of it last week:

Yes, I know. It looks innocent enough. But it isn’t. It’s a great example of Delta overpromising and underdelivering - exactly what an airline should NOT be doing. Let me explain.

As you can see in that picture, Delta is telling customers that flights will go by quickly because you have your own personal entertainment onboard. Yes, there is mice-type telling you that it’s not available on all flights, but nobody can see that. Even if they can see it, they aren’t reading it. All you see is a Delta plane with a cool piece of hardware in the back of it. What’s the chance you’ll get this super-duper system when you fly Delta out of LA? Not good. Take a look below to see the breakdown.

As of the September schedule, Delta will operate 680 flights per week out of LAX - that’s just above 97 per day on average. Of those 680, a whopping 79 have live tv and games as shown in that billboard. That’s just about 11 flights per day or 12% of the total. Another 3% have personal screens that just show movies in loops and 30% have overhead screens you watch with everyone else. But, if you fly from LA, you are most likely to be on the 55% of flights that have no entertainment at all. Yup, 55% of Delta flights are on regional jets.

So how do you get lucky? Well, you only get live tv and games if you fly to a Delta hub. All 39 weekly flights to JFK have it as do 13 to Atlanta, 12 to Cincinnati, 12 to Salt Lake, and 3 to Guatemala City. (Ok, that last one’s not a hub, but whatever.) And there are an additional 23 weekly flights to Atlanta that have personal screens but not live tv.

What you’ll want to do is look for aircraft type “752″ for live tv or “764″ and “777″ for personal screens with looping movies. I’m actually not even 100% sure on the 764, but that’s what I believe to be the case. Any other flight and you’re out of luck.

The airplane tray table . . . so small, so uneven, so . . . so upright and locked before landing. Why do they have to mess with a good thing?

First it was advertising on the tray table. I wasn’t a big fan of the half-naked dude advertising clothes at Dillard’s, but the Verizon ad wasn’t too horribly offensive. Now they’ve moved one step further and started selling space to Business Week. US Airways will be happily displaying the content soon.

So what is this content exactly? Well, it will be “written by some of BusinessWeek’s most popular columnists, including former GE CEO Jack Welch and his wife Suzy; the world’s most renowned wine critic, Robert M. Parker; and CNBC’s Closing Bell anchor Maria Bartiromo.”

Why do you do this to me?

I have a problem . . . if something in my line of sight can be read, I’ll read it. And since aisle, middle, and window seats will have different columns, I’ll read those too. And then, when I’m trying to relax, I’ll end up reading them again. I just can’t stop reading if something is in front of me, and that’s going to be really annoying. If I really wanted to read Business Week, I’d get a copy myself.

I understand the appeal to the advertisers. It’s a captive audience that now won’t even have to open a magazine to see the content. That’s a strong selling point, but not for the guy stuck on the plane. Think they’ll include some advertorials on there as well?

And what’s next? Digital media that keeps changing every few minutes? Maybe my tray table will start talking to me? Hmm, I’ll have to remember to keep my knives off the table . . . who knows what it’ll be capable of soon.

Remember my post about the billboard war in India? Looks like Jet and Kingfisher aren’t the only ones who want to play. Check out GoAir’s attempt at joining the party.

Edit 5/7 1217p: Ok, so I’ve had an email or two suggesting that the picture was photoshopped, and they’re probably right. The lighting on the GoAir billboard looks a bit suspect, but who cares. It’s still pretty cool. That being said, I’m fairly sure Kingfisher’s response is real. Can anyone confirm?

Another day, another lack of news in Delta week. What am I missing here?

There was an article in the New York Times today talking about how Delta has hired PR agencies to help them get back on track. They liken the effort to one of a politician, and they preview the new Delta commercial here.

You’ll notice that they prominently promote delta.com/change as the website to go visit. Ah, but guess what . . . it just redirects to delta.com. Lame!

Update 5/2 @ 10:47a: Well, now it redirects to change.delta.com, but it’s just a blank page with an image of a flower saying that change is coming May 7. If you have an NYT article going out on May 2 about it, I’d think you might want to actually have the site live.

One thing is does hint at is that it’s going to be so very “Web 2.0.” In other words, it’s going to involve users and their content in building the site. This is a great idea and it’s long overdue in the airline industry. I just hope they don’t edit out negative comments, because that will be a death sentence for the community. They’ll also need to integrate this into the home page and not just on a separate site. People go to Delta.com for travel very often, but you’re not going to get them to go to change.delta.com in the long term.

I really can’t wait to see this site.

I saw this Skybus press release announcing their aircraft advertising program today and knew I had to blog about it.

In short, they are going to sell advertising on any white space they can find. This includes the outside of the plane, overhead bins, tray tables, and restroom doors. Nationwide Insurance is the first to do the outside, but I’m going to be the first to do the inside. . . .

Looks good, huh? Hmm, maybe not. I can hear all those naysayers cringing about this “horrible” development (onboard advertising in general, not the picture of my face specifically), but I say . . . bring it. This is a great move for them.

Remember, Skybus is going to have ultra-low fares a la Ryanair. That means you could see fares for a buck or even less (just speculating here). The only way they can offer those low fares is if they can make money elsewhere. Advertising is one great way to do that. That’s how all those free websites, including mine, make money. (Side note: Remember to use those Google links at the bottom of this post if you are genuinely interested so I can start paying to advertise on Skybus.)

Generally all those people who say this is a horrible thing are the same people who complain that airfare is too expensive these days. Well, here’s your tradeoff. If you’re willing to stare at an ad for awhile, you too can fly for cheap.Most airlines aren’t going to match this, and they shouldn’t. The idea of paying for a better product in coach is something that hasn’t really happened on a large scale in some time. If you just want cheap, go ahead and shoehorn yourself into a tight seat and stare at ads all flight long. Buy a cup of water if you want, but don’t complain about it as long as you get there on time. If you want more, then you’ll have to pay more to fly on another airline that won’t put ads up.

It’s all about creating a value proposition that will appeal to different segments of travelers, and I think there is plenty of room for this type of the service at the bottom end of the pricing curve.

When America West first started putting ads on their tray tables a few years ago, I was skeptical. I didn’t like the idea of being forced to stare at ads for the entire flight. But in the end, America West put the ads on the inside of the tray tables, so it wasn’t too intrusive. (Well, except for the flight I took where there was a male model for Dillard’s staring at me the whole time I had a drink on the table - not cool.)

This isn’t Ryanair, but it’s a mockup from the company called Inviseo Marketing which apparently already works with Germanwings, LTU, and Aegean Airlines - all European carriers. Ryanair says this will be on all seatbacks within two years.

It’s not all bad. They’re pretty nice tray tables. You can see to the right of the ad, there is a little drop down cup holder so you don’t need to pull the whole tray down just for a drink. But, I’m sure that’s there to make sure you stare at the ad for even longer. Good times.

German supermarket Lidl will be running a promotion with Air Berlin at all their UK stores. For the week beginning September 5, customers will be able to buy £19 vouchers that can be turned in for a one way ticket on Air Berlin.

It’s a pretty interesting promotion, I think. According to The Guardian, there is a code on each voucher, and you can just enter it on the website or over the phone and it acts as the form of payment for the flight. It of course depends upon availability of the low fares on that flight, but I think everyone expects that.

They’ve tried this type of promotion with complete success before, so I wonder if it’s a matter of time before it becomes permanent.

It’s a great competitive advantage. The legacy carriers have fare structures that are too complicated for handing out free one way tickets. That’s why you see gift cards becoming popular over here. You can go to any Vons/Safeway/Dominick’s and many other places and buy a gift card for a variety of airlines.

But it’s not much fun to give someone a credit toward a flight. It’s a lot cooler if you can give someone two vouchers and say, “Here’s your trip to Spain.” Only low cost carriers with simple pricing structures can pull off something like that.

In what must be one of the more creative promotions around, Nantucket Airlines has decided to have a limerick contest.

Everyone knows the famous limerick that begins, “There once was a man from Nantucket.” If you don’t know it, you can probably guess what rhymes with Nantucket. So Nantucket Airlines has tweaked it a bit to incorporate the island’s airport code . . . ACK.

First prize of 10 one way tickets between ACK and Hyannis isn’t too interesting, but 2nd prize is a t-shirt that would be much cooler. All who enter get a sticker that looks like the image shown here.

So come up with your best entry and submit it today. Post if here if you’d like to share it with others as well.

There are many ways that airlines have responded to terrorist threats, but I have to say that Ryanair is one of the few to have ever tried humor.

If you go to their homepage, you’ll see this picture of Winston Churchill promoting their new low fares. I’m going to just take a wild guess that he didn’t give his permission from beyond the grave for this one.

Oh but wait, there’s more. Click on the link that says New Airport Security Restrictions - Put fun back into flying. Um, but before you click, make sure you don’t mind nudity. Seriously. They do love to joke around.

Clearly, if Ryanair had lost a plane or one single person had died, they would never have done this. Actually, if anyone had lost their lives on any airline, I can’t imagine they’d do this. At least, I hope they wouldn’t do something like this. But since the plot was foiled, I think it’s pretty funny.

People are very tense when flying these days, and anything that can be done to loosen things up is probably welcome. I think Ryanair is like a smart little kid that knows just how far he can push his mother without crossing the line. They always make news, they do a good job of mildly offending and creating controversy, but they still fill their planes.

So . . . funny or offensive? (Or both, I suppose.) What do you think?