Air Mail Takes News to New Heights

This digital weekly newsletter offers imaginative and unpredictable news at a more controlled pace.

Offering a modern, globalized lifestyle through a digital weekly newsletter, Air Mail separates itself from predictable journalism to provide stories you will not find anywhere else. Air Mails aims to provide the world citizen with a new type of news delivered directly to their inbox every Saturday morning at six A.M.

If the chic website design and playful story titles convince you to join Air Mail’s mailing list, the first email you receive will welcome you to the party and let you know that Air Mail’s premise is simple: “We supply you with stories ranging from politics and the environment to art and literature, style and fashion, high-end crime, and beyond, by some of the world’s finest journalists.”

Former Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Graydon Carter launched Air Mail in 2019 as a digital weekly publication to counter the overwhelming and seemingly endless cycle of daily news. The Air Mail team sensed that there was an audience who was tired of current news, “catholic in its tastes and curious about the world,” so they created a publication that appeals to the world citizen curious about the non-mainstream.

Proven by their success as a publication over the past five years, they found their audience and have stayed committed to their reputation as different from the rest.

More Than Just News

In hopes to expand what they offer, Air Mail considers a subscription to their newsletters to be more of a membership which includes access to podcasts, audio news reports, curated playlists, the Arts Intel Report (AIR) search engine which sifts through the best real and virtual art and culture events around the world, and, of course, full access to the news stories of every issue.

The Art Intel Report search engine

With a commitment to amusing-yet-sophisticated news at its core, Air Mail offers an experience, an opportunity to embrace the lifestyle of the sophisticated world traveler with a taste for oddity.

Air Supply (Air Mail’s cleverly named online shop) helps subscribers to immerse themselves in this globalized experience by offering a variety of products at a variety of prices in their “highly selective storefront.” Need some vintage pencils? They’ve got you covered for $14. Looking for a pair of Lignum Skis? You’ve come to the right place! So long as you have $3,720 to spare.

Air Supply partners with several different brands to offer a curated shopping experience, and they also have Guest Edits where members of the arts and fashion community share their favorite things. The well-known French florist Louis-Géraud Castor recommends his go-to candle and a must-have Hermès vintage magnifying glass, for example.

Stylish News For All

In all of its ventures, Air Mail remains true to its commitment to exciting and imaginative journalism. The many different writers all produce high-quality journalism that never takes a subject too seriously, always including small quips and unique perspectives which are often supported by a clever cover photo.

Every story uses the same display format which includes a clever title, an obvious category tag, pictures throughout the story, and one large ad repeated a few times on the page. Oddly enough, this one ad (which changes each week) blends in with the aesthetic of the webpage. Although it is not loud and distracting, the ad is huge, taking up the entire viewing screen when you scroll past it.

Air Mail’s business model is primarily based on subscription but is also supported by their one ad partnership per week and their Air Supply shop. They offer different subscription options with a one-month free trial, and they even offer a free one-year subscription to students and educators with an email address ending in .edu.

Air Mail successfully attracts new subscribers by staying committed to an audience that most publications do not prioritize, even offering Air Mail Jr. (or Air Mail Pilot)—a section on their website promoting “Good News For Kids” which includes bit-size news stories with no lack of quality journalism covering topics like discoveries about bees’ brains and British prime minister candidate Liz Truss buying her jewelry from Claire’s.

The commitment to quality journalism and unique curation of content has kept Air Mail on the up-and-up as it climbs rank among other digital publications and receives 523.4K visits each month. Lampoon rightly calls Air Mail a “concierge for their readers” as they guide their readers through an exploration of global style, crime, politics, art, and more. Air Mail reports on the high-end in a style tailored for all, helping its readers and their curiosity about the world take flight.