The original post asked certain questions, concisely, I believe the answers are as follows:
1. Probably no bags weigh exactly the standard weight. However, the total actual weight of all the bags loaded will be very close to as if they did. The statistically determined standard weight will normally mean 95% of all the bags loaded will have a weight somewhere between +/-1% of the standard. As the survey will have resulted in a normal population distribution curve (bell shaped), this means that there will be fewer and fewer instances of bags weighing much larger or much lesser than this.
Hence you can be confident that the actual weight will in fact be very close (tolerably close) to as if they all weighed the standard weight.
2. The zero underload is critical simply because you CANNOT LEGALLY depart overloaded!!
3. Standard loadings are nonsense for the reasons previously published.
(OUT OF TRIM - How can you tell if a bag weighs a certain amount just by looking at it! Surely you have to pick it up and then you can only guess! And then I bet you would be at 10-15% out with your guess).
Happiness appears to be flying out of somewhere other than LGW!!
[This message has been edited by Icarus (edited 13 January 2001).]