Oh here we go again.
Perhaps there should be a 'Fat Passenger' surcharge if they're making the planes burn more fuel. I'm surprised Ryaniar haven't thought of that.
I suspect that Flight Idle is not carrying any additional weight on his body and feels he is due a rebate. Miss, miss, it's not fair he wails...............
When is the weight for fatties to be taken? At time of booking, which might be months ahead of the date of travel and therefore liable to be inaccurate by the time of the flight? Imagine the arguments at c-in when someone who has entered 50 kgs weight at the time of booking turns up to c-in and is 95 kgs!!
Or perhaps at check-in, causing even more time to be spent in the queues as the poor check-in agent asks everyone to stand on the scales? Should this be with coat and jacket on, or just down to shirt/blouse and trousers/dress/skirt? I can just imagine Mr and Mrs Blobby arriving at c-in with just their underwear covering them, then sneaking off to get dressed after c-in. What then? Re-weighing at the gate?
Hmmmm the B777-300, A380, B747 frequently have 400+ pax on board. People will have to take an extra days holiday to allow for processing time at the airport!!
Perhaps we could include height as another way the skinny short a*s*s could claim a lower fair. An additional charge per inch over 5' 8" for fellas and 5' 4" for the ladies.
Or we could continue to use a notional weight for males/females/children/infants and know that the total weight is likely to be within a certain figure depending on config and passenger load. This reduces the fannying around at check-in, keeps everyone in a reasonable frame of mind, and is very workable.