Hawaiian Airlines Want to Know Your Weight (and Here’s Why)
Sarah C. Thomas October 17, 2016
Hawaii Airlines has travelers wondering if they are at the airport or the doctor’s office.
If you are on the 2,600-mile Hawaiian flight from Honolulu to American Samoa, you may be asked to step right up on the scale (with your carry-ons) and get weighed.
Why? Hawaiian realized their planes were burning more fuel than usual on route, and estimated that customers on this route are typically an average of 30 lbs heavier than other routes, according to the Associated Press. The new policy – which does not allow passengers to choose their own seats, is an efficient way to guarantee even weight distribution on the flight, Hawaiian says.
But some flyers are not only displeased with the inconvenience of the unusual policy; they have made formal complaints to the U.S. Department of Transportation citing discrimination.
Noting that the new rule is only for flights to Pago Pago, the capital of the U.S. Territory. Atimua Migi argues that “What they’re saying is Samoans are obese.”
Hawaiian says that their new plan is designed to protect passengers, and made the decision with “an abundance of caution” in mind, explaining that if only adults were seated in one row of the plane, the combined weight might go over load limitations in the event of a crash-landing. Hawaiian says that in order to optimally distribute the weight, they would like to leave one seat open on each row or place a child in a row with two adults.
Proponents of the new policy point out the upside for travelers: Instead of limiting how many seats could be sold, the airline’s decision to rearrange the distribution of passengers based on weight has kept fares from rising.
Aside from the formal complaints dismissed by the U.S. Department of Transportation as “not on its face discriminatory,” few passengers have taken issue.
[Photo: PRNewsFoto/Hawaiian Airlines]
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I was on two occasions aske to step on a scale, once when boarding a 777. I told the gate agent to bugger off. On very small planes which do not have scales available to balance the load there may be a justification to weight a group of passengers to determine the load but never an individual. Safety cannot be broadly and bluntly be used to trample privacy.
Scientific research (not opinions) has shown that Samoans are in fact some of the heaviest people in the world. Perhaps those offended would like to appreciate the fact Hawaiian Air has not charged them EXTRA fees, as some airlines do, and is concerned about passenger safety, as evidenced by the seating arrangements. Unbalanced loads are an aviation safely issue, and, in fact planes have crashed due to shifting, heavy loads on planes that caused imbalance. Any one mind sharing their weight to avoid a crash?