Many years ago someone crunched the numbers for the extra fuel burn carrying bottles of booze, some of them glass, on long-haul operations just so's the CC could sell them to pax and hopefully supplement their meagre earnings after Airline profit.
The conclusion was considerable extra burn, per annum. per fleet, per company. The proposed solution; why not allow the pax to purchase at destination as they disembarked but still in a customs-controlled environment?
Allegedly when this was put to the nations various, it was considered all too difficult and so the practice of ferrying bottles of Mothers' Ruin backwards and forwards over the ponds continued during all the fuel crises since the 1974 OPEC wake-up call.
3% extra per hour per extra unit of weight/mass carried seems to be the norm for modern fuel-efficient 'frames and under the laws of physics we have to accept it takes effect as soon as that 1 kilogram or 1 pound steps or is loaded aboard.
Fat-
-tax is the thought which has occurred to all of us as we've watched decoys for the whaling fleet getting a clear run past the check-in desk as our sylph-like selves/companions get hammered for extra payment because the cabin/checked bag is a tad over the specified amount.
Maybe it's time to introduce a pax+baggage weighbridge with approporiate surcharges but doubtless the human rights brigade would howl it down?
