<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Beckles:
I don't understand why big airports at least (may not be practical for small airports) don't have scales to weigh the planes before take-off ... especially with some of the incidents lately (B1900 in CLT crashing in particular).
The plane in fact may have easily been underweight because the weight of passengers, luggage, and even some cargo I believe (like USPS mail) is assumed and not known exactly, and is estimated somewhat conservatively.</font>
I don't think it really is that big of a problem; although many of us have experienced these weight issues, it really does not occur that often. Moreover, it is not practical to have a scale at every gate, so you'd have the issue of where to put it. Big airport have several departure runways, so unless you put a scale at each one, you would have planes taxing far out of their way to be weighed.