Slightly aside; is it not the case on the wide body a/c that the odd tonne of calculation being out does not make a huge difference. In turn by scale this can be applied to narrow bodied a/c. My rational for this is that baggage weights (nominal) that are applied to the majority of our flts and pax weights (nominal) often bear little comparison to the actuals of today and are based on a '90's matrix. Regarding load planning Boeing wide body aircraft have in most cases 100 plus plans with most airlines using no more than 10 plans as it starts to get confusing.