In a potential drive to boost revenue, United Airlines (UAL  ) is considering utilizing passenger information to aid businesses in serving targeted advertisements to their clientele.

What Happened: United Airlines is deliberating over the idea of leveraging its vast customer data to facilitate brands in delivering personalized ads, reported the Wall Street Journal. This prospect could introduce a novel income channel for the airline, aligning it with a host of other companies exploiting customer data for advertising purposes. The advertisements could be featured on the in-flight entertainment system or via the airline's app.

While this decision could significantly widen United's advertising scope, the airline remains undecided and may opt against entering the targeted advertising domain, as per sources.

Why It Matters: Personalized advertising could present a fresh avenue for the airline to profit from its customer base. Should it be implemented, it might enable an advertiser to propose its products or services to a passenger based on their prior travel history and predilections.

Several companies outside the advertising sector, including Walmart, Uber Technologies, Instacart, and Home Depot, have commenced the usage of customer data to market personalized ads in the recent past. Insider Intelligence estimates that U.S. marketers are likely to expend $46.4 billion on "retail media" advertising this year.

In the event that United Airlines decides to proceed with this approach, the Wall Street Journal reports that the airline is ensuring passengers have the option to opt out of these targeted ads in order to adhere to privacy laws.