Try sending a parcel by Airmail!...you'll soon see how much of a premium you pay for weight!
Remember the 6d Airmail letters you used to get from the postoffice, when a surface-letter cost about 2 1/2 d ?
For the youngsters...6d=2.5p so surface would be ~1p (£1= 240d)
A "d" was a penny..apparently from the Latin "Denario"...but uss poor, ill-educated kids thought it was short for" Dosh"
Anyway, I'd always assumed that the total pax-weight was well-under the maum for a commercial aircraft. (think 40 ton wagon full of cornflakes or Rice crispies....full up volume-wise but the pallets weigh more than the load! )
So, there's a good case for airlines to charge a base-price for a seat,then supplement it according to the occupant's weight....it would also be fairer on peeps like musicians , who pay full price for a seat for their violin or cello.
With so many of the flying population being"large", the model based on 300 scrawny baby-boomers like me. just doesn't work. It DOES show that the flight-envelope of commercial aircraft is extremely conservatively specified.
(look at the massive overcrowding reported in some 3rd. world cases, yet they still operated "safely" (no fatalities!) albeit the margin was probably a bit on the thin side.)
As a 9-stone weakling, I don't want to be squashed by a huge, smelly (yes! they do!) person who has paid the same as me...subsidising is a perogative of the public-sector...privately, one pays for a given quality and standard......next you'll tell me i can only buy a huge,battleship-quality 3-piece suite, 'cos
a lighter, smaller one would discriminate against the heavies.
Life isn't fair ...some are thick, some brainy, some dexterous, some clumsy some big, some small.......the thick, clumsy hoofers accept that they'll never be brain-surgeons..why don't the PC brigade take one of their realism pills and get with the truth.
AHH...feel better for a morning rant.
