Pay by weight study/article
 

Pay by weight study/article
 

Read it yesterday or so. It's an interesting concept, but personally, I wouldn't appreciate being treated like I'm flying FedEx/UPS Airlines.

Sounds rather difficult and cumbersome to enforce too. So I'm overweight and buy a lightweight ticket. No bags to check and I OLCI. Is the GA going to turn me away at the gate?

Maybe they should use BMI index instead. :D Otherwise, seems to unfairly treat tall people, even those who are not overweight since with height comes weight.

I also see a new revenue stream coming from this as well: Airlines can now charge a $5 fee to non-elites for each weigh-in.

How about Body Fat % BMI is a bad tool.

Regardless of the cause, more weight = more fuel used. Short/fat, tall/average - the engines don't differentiate. It's not a fat penalty, it's a usage based fee.

Conceptually I have no issue with it (even at 6' 2", average build but heavier than most due to height), but the costs of doing it would outweigh the benefits.

I don't see it as ever being practical to implement, but in theory I have no problem with paying for what you use and not paying for what you don't use. Heavier folks (like myself, I'm 6'-4" and about 270lb or 193cm and 122kg) use more fuel. Lighter folks use less.

But there is also an issue of degree. It's simple physics that heavier objects cause the aircraft to use more fuel than lighter objects, but what is the difference between the fuel I burn on a 900-mile 737 flight, and the fuel burned by a petite woman of 100lb? Sure, it's a factor of 2.7, but what does that equate to in gallons of fuel and dollars of fuel cost? If I'm using $10 more fuel than the median, then it seems fair to charge me an extra $10, but if I'm only using $1.50 more fuel, it would be unfair to implement a $25 or $30 weight surcharge on me.

Then, there is a matter of the "median" or baseline weight. Suppose an airline decided to place the median weight - i.e. the range between which a passenger is not charged a surcharge or given a discount - too high or too low? Will every airline set their own median weights? Will the median weights be different on domestic flights than on international flights?

How do you measure the passenger's weight? Take his word for it, or force every passenger to weigh in at check-in as we do with checked luggage? How about those who travel with only carry-ons to speed their check-in; they'd have to stand in long lines at the scales. And will the weigh in include your carry-on bags? Will passengers begin stripping down to shorts in order to lighten themselves enough to make weight, like a high school wrestler?

As soon as you start logically reasoning out the details, it soon becomes far more complicated than it first appears. But I wouldn't put it past the airlines to try it sometime; after all, the lion's share of their profits over the last 10 years or so have been from fees, which as I understand it are taxed at t different rate than the base fare, which is why it's so much more profitable to levy fees than to simply increase fares to cover rising costs.

As to the whole "humiliation and discrimination" issue - balderdash.

If you're fat, you know it. Scales hold no great surprises. Being fat is part of who you are; if you are happy with who you are, you should feel no humiliation when others know who you are. If you feel humiliation, I suggest that you're not happy with who you are, and either need to change who you are (in this context, by losing weight), or get some therapy to help you come to grips with who you are. All that matters is how YOU feel about you; how others feel about you is irrelevant. Accept yourself, or change yourself. There is no third option.

Exactly.

The math provided in a few places, including here, shows the cost differential to be $0.04-$0.10 per pound for every 1,000 mile flight. Assuming a vast majority are within 50lbs of an average, you're dealing with +/- $5/passenger. Certainly not worth the effort.



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Pay by weight study/article
 

Wish it could happen. Fat people should pay.

How about tall people?

And muscular people? Muscle tissue is denser than fat tissue.

Indeed. Good point.

Indeed, there seems to be some confusion in this thread about how charging by weight works. It doesn't matter how tall or muscular you are, or what your BMI or body fat is. If you weigh more, you pay more.

It seems very hard to make it workable (weigh-ins at the airport). Plus, it's waiting for stories about people starving themselves to avoid extra charges and then collapsing on the plane.

If anything, I can see charges based on baggage weight becoming more granular. Ryanair already charge different amounts for checked baggage ($30 for a 15kg bag, $45 for a 20kg bag). Perhaps charging based on combined checked and carry-on is next, in 5kg increments.

by weight sounds like cattle fare
 

i agree with you.....we are paying to get from one place to other.....most are regular weight but others not should not have to pay more because they like to eat.....smile) let the skinny people pay reg price as get same service....why should someone pay more because they used more jet fuel for voyage

As long as we are dreaming. How about a combination of passenger weight plus baggage? That would be the fairest of all. Sign me 116 pounds who travels fairly light.

This is precisely how things were done in Tonga back in 2005. On the interisland flights, they had a scale at the check-in counter and weighed both you and your luggage, and if the combined weight was above a certain number you'd pay extra.