ADVERTISERS ASSAULT AIR PASSENGERS

ERIC PFANNER NEW YORK TIMES "Please return your seatbacks and tray tables to their upright and locked position — and start reading the advertisement that is staring you in the face." O.K., you won't actually hear that last part as the flight attendants prepare an aircraft for landing. But as airlines look for new sources of revenue to offset rising fuel costs, more carriers are turning planes into marketing vehicles, installing advertising in hard-to-miss places.

Several American carriers, including US Airways and AirTran, recently started selling advertisements on napkins or stickers that appear on open tray tables. Over the summer, Ryanair, the European low-cost carrier, has gone further, installing advertising panels on the covers of the overhead luggage compartments and on the backs of closed tray tables. . .

InviseoMedia, which sold the seatback advertisements to Ryanair and to another European low-cost carrier, Germanwings, says the system provides an average of 40 minutes of "dwell time" during a typical flight. In other words, the only ways for passengers to avoid the advertisements, which are placed behind tamper-proof plastic shields, is to open the tray or get up and stretch their legs. And when they do that, they are confronted with the advertisements on the overhead bins, which are being sold by a separate company, Fourth Edition.