weero

On yesterday's evening flight HKG-SIN the HKG folks had installed a scale just at the end of the Red Carpet line. When I arrived at the carpet there was a young woman with her hand luggage standing on the scale.

I gave my passport and the BP to the GA and when I walked on with the stub, the lady next to scales stopped me and commanded - not asked "please step on the scales sir". To my terse "why should I?", she answered in eloquent English (just mention that to emphasis that it was not a communications problem) "we taking the weight of all passengers today". This clearly wasn't true as the mass-boarding gate to the right had no scales installed.
To my "I am not interested, thanks" she countered "we need to know the weight of the passengers".

She made it sound very official as if the weight distribution of the plane depended on that number. Only to my firm "I am not willing to participate, I will not step on these scales" she looked over to what appeared to be her supervisor, and for a few seconds said "ok then, move on!".

I find this pretty outrageous. Weighing hand luggage is one thing but passenger weight is personal information. Asking for people to participate is one thing but demanding that they participate is unacceptable. UA is an international carrier and a US airline. It cannot simply accept cultural deviations at the HKG station to condone such a procedure.

To somewhat confine the discussion: I snuggly fit into an E- seat (unlike the man they placed behind me despite the scales). I brought one very small backpack and a small computer bag. The woman they measured just before I entered was very slim. So this was definitely not the echelon of a POS probing raid.

Am I overinterpreting this?

carl92103

i would never get on the scales --you did the right thing. I never heard of anything so absurd

ryan182

Wow, really? checking calendar....nope long last April 1st

OK someone should get the smack down for that, what possible reason could they have for weighing passengers, ridiculous.

jhayes_1780

Yes, it must have been a good cargo day for HKG-SIN(as a 744 can carry 875,000lbs)..... if they needed to know, I would have told them (because it was that close of a call)

dgwright99

Done in the way that you describe - I agree; completely unacceptable.

OTOH, knowing the weight of the plane, including pax and cargo, should presumably allow cargo to be maximized, which, all other things being equal means lower fares.

Right now, IIRC each passenger is assumed to weigh a certain amount, and this averages out over a few hundred pax. However, there must be some statistical approach that ensures that even some 3 or 4 sigma combination of pax does not make the plane dangerously overweight. Therefore, with a median set of pax, the plane is carrying less cargo than it could.

So - solution could be some kind of combination of load cells on the landing gear, allowing the whole laden plane to be weighed; seems like it could achieve nay reasonable objective.

Or, for that matter a load cell in the floor of the jetway could annonomously weight each passenger plus carryon as they boarded.

It's not unreasonable for an airline to want to know the total weight of all pax; it is unreasonable for individual pax to be weighed, especially in public and without advance notice.

see the world

This may be a little bit rude of me to ask, but are you a man/woman of greater size? As in, do you look like you are a little bit heavier?

DBoy

I had no problem getting on the scale in HKG two weeks ago, with my carryon, per their request. They explained nicely to me that they are doing a survey.

I would think that an airline would be very interested in average passenger + carryon weight to help them in planning. I was happy to help.

The only issue I see is that the request should be polite and using the scale should be voluntary.

YYZC2

I would have told them I weigh 1,000 pounds and I would be more than happy to volunteer my seat.

weero

All been answered in the original unedited post.

They weighed a <100lb lady ahead of me ... that pretty much says it all.

mobilebucky

Wow, they make it mandatorly now? When I transit at HKG to SIN 5/1, there were a small handout given to all transit passengers saying they were doing a study on passenger's carryon weight in an effort to better understanding the overall weight/fuel usage of the aircraft or something like that. At that time it was all voluntary, I guess most passenger don't bother with it so they have to make it mandatory now. Also, apparently you can't bring any bottle water to the aircraft even if you get it from airside .

Kiwi Flyer

From time to time airlines do these surveys to make sure their pax weight allowances are up to date. I am surprised it was optional - difficult to get a reasonably reliable figure if pax can self-select out of it.

weero

I do not think that we should help them with such 'surveys' .. they look into another 'statistically safe' way to plan further rip offs for passengers, such as charging for combine weight etc etc.
Don't they weigh the planes anymore before push back? I though that this is absolutely mandatory as an error in weight distribution - especially with today's laden birds - can be fatal very quickly.

weero

Well I guess that they have to - I would have not walked on these scales even if she insisted on it.

A survey is hardly grounds for denying a pax boarding a flight.
I don't think so - she just made it sound like this and never explicitly.

Weighing carry-ons is their right btw. Some airports do it quite regularly. But weighing passengers without ample warning - so I can buy my tickets somewhere else - is not acceptable.

dgwright99

I remember reading something about the "assumed average pax weight" being increased a couple of years back - which if correct would suggest that planes are not weighed before each TO.

A quick Google seems to confirm this - http://www.localtechwire.com/news/local/story/1089931/

"In-ground scales that weigh planes and measure their weight distribution as they head for the runway - double-checking the work of pilots and load managers who currently perform such calculations - are prohibitively expensive."

Kiwi Flyer

You're probably right but I seem to recall a year or two ago there was a fuss about airlines in NZ threatening to do just that. CAA backed the airlines stance.

There are some flights where all pax MUST be weighed. Most recently for me was LDH-PQQ. As the flight is near the end of the range of the a/c and there is no land closer to LDH, it seemed fair enough to me.