Easy Jet flight overweight - 4 Pax disembarked

[A2QFI]

I read this in a UK Tabloid

"One passenger, Simon Lay, told the press about the odd incident. He said that the plane was delayed by an hour and a half because the combination of passengers and their luggage was 300kg over the weight limit.

He told the Liverpool Echo that the airline offered £100 to anyone prepared to leave the flight, but there were no volunteers. Then a group of passengers clubbed together to bump it up to £200 per person, and four volunteers appeared."

SFAIK passengers are assumed to be a certain weight, checked baggage is weighed but hand luggage isn't so how did anyone know that the aircraft was overweight and by how much?

[BN2A]

Structurally overweight, or performance limited by runway/weather concerned that day?? Ski flight?? Route to be flown?? En route winds back from 6+ hours away??

There are many variables...

:}

[172_driver]

SFAIK passengers are assumed to be a certain weight, checked baggage is weighed but hand luggage isn't so how did anyone know that the aircraft was overweight and by how much?

Checked baggage is normally a standard weight as well. Hand luggage is included in passenger weight. The aircraft may have been 2 tonnes overweight for all we know.. but on paper it was just 300 kg.

[Tranceaddict]

Checked baggage is normally a standard weight as well.

EZY use actual baggage weights and standard PAX weights which included hand luggage

[DaveReidUK]

the airline offered £100 to anyone prepared to leave the flight, but there were no volunteers. Then a group of passengers clubbed together to bump it up to £200 per person, and four volunteers appeared.

Very public-spirited, but misguided and unnecessary.

If everyone had held their nerve, EZY would have themselves upped the incentive until they had enough volunteers, and nobody would have been out of pocket.

Worth reading this account of the event on AOL, if only for some of the ludicrous comments: EasyJet passengers whip round before take-off - AOL Money UK (http://money.aol.co.uk/2013/01/18/easyjet-passengers-whip-round-before-take-off/)

[Anansis]

Structurally overweight, or performance limited by runway/weather concerned that day?? Ski flight?? Route to be flown?? En route winds back from 6+ hours away??

There are many variables...

In around 2006 I took an Easyjet flight out of LPL. After a short delay post boarding, the captain announced that an error light was indicating that one of the overwing exit slides was faulty. Long story short, they couldn't be certain that the slide would work in the event of an accident, which reduced the maximum passenger capacity of the aircraft below the number of passengers on the plane. They offered £100 to people who were prepared to rebook on a later flight.

I'd be very surprised if this aircraft was structurally overweight, even if it was laden down with heavy ski's- Liverpool to Geneva is a short journey for an A319. There's almost certainly much more to this story than is indicated in the article.

If it's true that passengers clubbed together to increase the compensation offered for volunteers to leave the flight, then this would be very bad PR for Easyjet. They seem to be trying very hard to differentiate themselves as a 'value' airline, rather than a 'budget' carrier.

[Piltdown Man]

Aircraft overweight? No problem. Keep calm, stay seated until €250 and a free flight comes your way. I hope EasyJet weren't trying to escape with just £100. Also, the flight has to arrive within three hours of schedule otherwise everybody gets a bung. It's worth a look here (http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-rights/air/index_en.htm).

PM

[AlpineSkier]

The article said that the overweight was "caused " by the unusual distribution of men/women on this flight. From memory there were something like 120 men and only 15 women instead of the assumed 50/50 (ish ) and since men are calculated as weighing 10-15 kg more than women, this gave the "theoretical " excess.

[FairWeatherFlyer]

The only thing you know for certain will be Michael O'leary reading this and dreaming of charging by the passenger kilo :)

[BN2A]

Michael O'Leary reads Pprune???

What's his username??????

:ok:

[ExXB]

Something doesn't seem right here. Liverpool's runway is 2286m in length and even at maximum weight that should be plenty long enough. MTOW is around 75t vs an empty weight of 41t for an A319. (Or 213kg for each of the 159 passengers)

LPL-GVA is just over 1000km, a relatively short flight for an aircraft with a (fully loaded) range of 6,700km. (Yes, I know, holding and alternatives could add 30-50%)

[DaveReidUK]

LPL-GVA is just over 1000km, a relatively short flight for an aircraft with a (fully loaded) range of 6,700km. (Yes, I know, holding and alternatives could add 30-50%) The LPL-GVA sector fuel would be irrelevant if fuel was being tankered for subsequent legs as well. Full pax+full fuel will take an A319 to pretty well MTOW, or above, depending on assumed pax+baggage weight.

It's a lot easier to offload pax at short notice than fuel.

[Sunnyjohn]

Thanks for that link, PM. I've printed off the information and we will carry it with us in our hand luggage. So far we've been lucky, but you never know . . .

[ExXB]

It's a lot easier to offload pax at short notice than fuel.

Sorry, you are right. my mistake was in thinking Squezzy was in the business of flying pax to their destination. They've handled this very poorly, if the press reports are to be believed.

Edited to add: their statutory minimum was to provide any passengers denied boarding with €250 (£210) and with a rerouting. They appear to have breached Regulation 261 here.

Note that the regulation provides no excuse for denied boarding, no "extraordinary circumstances" defense in this case.

[Yellow Sun]

Originally Posted by DaveReidUK
It's a lot easier to offload pax at short notice than fuel.
Sorry, you are right. my mistake was in thinking Squezzy was in the business of flying pax to their destination. They've handled this very poorly, if the press reports are to be believed.
20th Jan 2013 19:13

Unless of course the limiting parameter is Max Zero Fuel Weight in which case you will have no choice other than to offload payload.

YS

[Lord Spandex Masher]

The LPL-GVA sector fuel would be irrelevant if fuel was being tankered for subsequent legs as well.

Of course if they're silly enough to load tankering fuel instead of passengers...

It's a lot easier to offload pax at short notice than fuel.

It's also quite simple to find out the final ZFW before uplifting fuel to avoid having to offload either.

[DaveReidUK]

It's also quite simple to find out the final ZFW before uplifting fuel to avoid having to offload either.As, no doubt, it would have been.

It was clearly later on in the proceedings that it dawned on EZY that the abnormal male/female pax ratio was likely to have resulted in a higher ZFW than that assumed.

See post #8.

[Lord Spandex Masher]

Hang on, if they knew the final ZFW why wouldn't they spot the weight problem then?

[DaveReidUK]

Hang on, if they knew the final ZFW why wouldn't they spot the weight problem then?It's a while since I last saw a loadsheet, but all the ones I've ever encountered have used a standard passenger weight, which obviously implies a typical adult male/female pax ratio and hence weight (84kg in this dummy example):

http://www.planeweighs.com/images/load_pics/Picture1.jpg

Clearly if the actual mix is far from typical (as in this case), the loadsheet won't reflect the true ZFW. I'm not saying that the difference would be critical, but in this instance somebody obviously did think it was.

[Lord Spandex Masher]

Yes, that's the all adult weight. The male/female weights are 88kg and 70kg respectively. In this instance using the all adult weight gives a 'weight' 270kg less. Both processes are legal, obviously.

With the final ZFW based on either they would have been overweight so should have spotted it before they'd loaded, everybody, every bag and all that fuel no?

[DaveReidUK]

Yes, that's the all adult weight. The male/female weights are 88kg and 70kg respectively. In this instance using the all adult weight gives a 'weight' 270kg less. Both processes are legal, obviously.

With the final ZFW based on either they would have been overweight so should have spotted it before they'd loaded, everybody, every bag and all that fuel no? Sorry, you've lost me now.

I haven't seen what an EZY loadsheet looks like - are you saying that they calculate the ZFW using the actual male/female pax split for each particular flight rather than using a standard adult weight ?

If they do, then I agree they should have spotted the overweight in advance.

If they don't, then it's entirely conceivable that the assumption of a typical split would produce a ZFW less than max (as it obviously did), but the addition of the unforeseen males (at 18kg extra for each) would have put them over MZFW or MTOW.

[Lord Spandex Masher]

I suspect Easy, like most other airlines, use both and either way they were technically overweight anyway.

[Anansis]

I doubt that this aircraft was structurally overweight. Past comments suggest that the male/female ratio would have had a negligible affect on the overall weight of the aircraft. The journey itself was less than 1/6th of the maximum range of a fully loaded A319. Six times more fuel would add much more weight to the aircraft than a few extra men with ski's. Airlines don't carry additional fuel for fun (see the numerous threads on the subject knocking about R&N). Why would they offload passengers to carry extra fuel when they could just refuel in GVA? If there were problems with refueling in GVA, the distance GVA-LPL-GVA still amounts to less than half of the aircrafts fully loaded range. Even if they were flying a 'W' pattern there aren't many destinations which are further away from GVA than LPL.

Edit: I'm not too familiar with the implications of the max ZFW, but it seems to me that an aircraft type which is certified to carry cargo should have a much higher maximum ZFW than would be accounted for by bags and passengers alone (even if many of them were carrying ski's) - EZY don't carry cargo so presumably have a higher ceiling in this regard(?). I happily stand to be corrected on this presumption :)

I would suggest that perhaps they developed some kind of technical fault shortly before departure which reduced their maximum takeoff (or landing) weight (as I alluded to in my earlier post). If this is the case then presumably nobody would have been able to spot that they were overweight until after boarding.

Are there any technical problems which could result in this happening?

EXxB:
Edited to add: their statutory minimum was to provide any passengers denied boarding with €250 (£210) and with a rerouting. They appear to have breached Regulation 261 here.

Unfortunately not. They asked for volunteers to leave the aircraft and people accepted on Easyjets terms. Had they forced people to disembark then they would be entitled to the full amount under Regulation 261. As Piltdown Man stated, the passengers should have "Kept calm and stayed seated until €250 and a free flight came their way." This seems to have been very badly handled by Easyjet.

[DaveReidUK]

Why would they offload passengers to carry extra fuel when they could just refuel in GVA?

I think you're missing the point.

Firstly, I agree with you that we're probably not talking about a ZFW limitation here.

The way I read things is that the fuel loaded, given the originally-calculated passenger weight, produced a take-off weight of just under MTOW. Nothing wrong with that, of course.

Then someone does a few fresh sums and concludes that the unusual male/female pax split has resulted in a higher take-off weight than orginally calculated, that now exceeds MTOW.

The fuel is already on board by now, so my original question stands: which is easier to offload - pax or fuel ? No contest.

[Anansis]

Thanks DaveReidUK. I don't disagree with your hypothesis per se, but I don't understand why they would take so much extra fuel on such a short sector that MTOW would become a factor. It doesn't make sense to me...

[DaveReidUK]

I don't understand why they would take so much extra fuel on such a short sector that MTOW would become a factor. It doesn't make sense to me... Looking at the EZY timetable, it appears that the aircraft doesn't head straight back from GVA to LPL.

Assuming that it does, say, a W sequence of legs before ending back at LPL, then the trade-off between the cost of tankering fuel vs the advantage of shorter non-refuelled turnrounds might make sense to EZY, even if it doesn't to us.

[siftydog]

The max ZFW problem isn't new with the GVA flights; run into it a few times myself. It's not uncommon to have overloads show up at the flight planning stage, sorting them can be a headache that might not be resolved until 15 minutes before departure.

In this instance though it seems EZY determined to save a few quid and be cheeky in their comp offer has bit them in the bum big time.

Maybe the lesson learned is that they'll just play it straight in future; offer the full whack straight up or just leave bags behind.

[JohnieWalker]

For all we know A/C might have been swapped on short notice because of AOG or whatever reason with fuelling for another sector already completed. Or fuelling truck guy screwed up. Or latest EZFW came through to Ops for calculation too late. Or Captain went for that extra fuel on top of possible tankering and, well, made a mistake. Or just the mentioned m/w problem + tankering. A lot of possibilities really :)

[ExXB]

Yes, but how ethical is it to ask for volunteers at half the compensation that they would be required to pay for an involuntary denied boarding?

The airlines were given flexibility on the compensation offered to volunteers was on the premise that the airlines could offer something other than money, like free tickets, that would be good for both parties.

So they appeal to the unseasoned (non-pprune type) passenger.

[RevMan2]

This is, of course, fogged by the passing of time, but I distinctly recall being told that the first thing an ops agent does in the case of an "overweight event" (that's the current platitude, I assume..) is to adjust the pax weight down by the number of children/infants on board and then - if you're close enough - increase taxi fuel.

Actively aided and abetted by the cockpit crew

[occasional]

Yes, but how ethical is it to ask for volunteers at half the compensation that they would be required to pay for an involuntary denied boarding?


Depends entirely on the individual passengers circumstances and what their ongoing arrangements might be.

If changing flights didnt do any more than delay my arrival at final destination by an hour I would happlily accept 50 quid. If one misses ongoing connections then the amount required might be very large.

Asking for volunteers to disembark is a perfectly reasonable arrangement, which, in my limited experience, works very effectively.

[DaveReidUK]

Depends entirely on the individual passengers circumstances and what their ongoing arrangements might be.No, the passengers' circumstances determine whether it's a practical and effective strategy. Whether it's an ethical one is an entirely different question.

[occasional]

No, the passengers' circumstances determine whether it's a practical and effective strategy. Whether it's an ethical one is an entirely different question.

Then as far as I am concerned it is entirely ethical. The airline has a problem and asking for volunteers is the best way to fix it.
The volunteer makes the decision as to what compensates for their personal disruption.

[ExXB]

In may be within the letter of the Regulation, but is not within the intent. Squeezy is hoping you are ignorant of the Regulation. They win if you are.

The downside of this is more intervention by Regulators.

The EC has suggested in the past that airlines should not be permitted to involuntarily deny boarding - i.e. that volunteers must be found, even if it results in a bidding war.

It would serve Squeezy right, if this was to occur.

[Agaricus bisporus]

Dear me!

I get the impression there are a lot of people commenting here who know diddley squat about commercial ops and loading.

For education of the spotters here....
Loadsheets at EZY are done by the flight crew if they're lucky ten minutes before departure. Last minute changes come after that. So go figure how much "in advance" (in advance of what, fer chrissakes? is there a deadline for when spotters think this should have been spotted?) any revelation of overweight is likely to occur.

d'uh oh!

[cockney steve]

re- ethics...They're a BUSINESS..Pax were quite entitled to refuse, but obviously NONE had read the t's & c's of their contract with the carrier.

for goodness' sake! they're supposedly adults!-As such, they don't need their hand held and their ass wiped for them.

IMHO Easy made the right business decision...they're not a damned charity. Any pax who sold-out "cheap" may well be retrospectively miffed...Tough cheddar! be a bit more savvy next time.

This incident DOES make a good case for what another poster jokingly suggested.....WEIGH each Pax and charge excess for excess weight!

if "standard" weight was set at a reasonable level ,I see no rational grounds for objection. Lighter pax will just enjoy a less cramped seat than their porkier fellow travellers.

[Tagron]

It comes as some relief to find some contributions from posters who know something about EZY operations.

Siftydog’s comments (#27) about ZFW issues on GVA flights is telling. But of course it does not need a ZFW limit exceedance to generate a flight planning problem. It is enough to have a ZFW increase beyond the assumptions made in the fuel uplift decision and for the problem not to be identified until too late. In that case the issue most likely becomes the planned Maximum Landing Weight. It would only be a takeoff weight issue if they had scheduled an aircraft with the low MTOW (64000 kgs), but surely they would not do that for this service ?

The assumption has been made that the culprit is over aggressive tankering. Well maybe. But has anyone looked at the GVA and alternate forecasts for the period specific to the flight ? I do not have the details myself but I do know that in that general time span there were weather issues at GVA resulting in a number of diversions. In those circumstances carrying a significant amount of extra fuel to cater for runway closures holding and potential diversion would seem a sensible operational decision.

[PENKO]

Is it ethical to be awarded 250 euro's compensation if your flight has only cost you 30 quid? When my train is delayed, why am I not entitled to the same 250 euro's?

If you want a discussion on ethics, fine, let's have it!

[DaveReidUK]

This incident DOES make a good case for what another poster jokingly suggested.....WEIGH each Pax and charge excess for excess weight!

Does it ?

AFAIK nobody, least of all EasyJet, has made any reference to passengers being overweight. We're told simply that there was an “exceptionally high proportion of male passengers".

Or are you suggesting gender quotas on every flight ?

[ExXB]

CS, Have you read Squeezy's T&Cs?

I just tried to find what they say in these circumstances. There is some stuff on denied boarding, and a link to another page with their interpretations of the Regulation. Finally I find the rule on what happens for an overbooking, but not when passengers are denied boarding for other reasons, such as this.

I expect one reason they got no volunteers at £100 was because some were aware of their rights. But for EZY to sit there and let their other passengers reach into their wallets, when it was their responsibility to deal with the situation, THAT was unethical.

Yes I know they are a business and yes I know that ethics in business are almost nonexistent anywhere. But that isn't going to stop me from my comments.

[DaveReidUK]

Finally I find the rule on what happens for an overbooking, but not when passengers are denied boarding for other reasons, such as this.


From EastJet's website:

If you are involuntarily denied boarding or your flight is cancelled (provided an exception specified above does not apply), you shall receive compensation amounting to the following:

· EUR 250 for all flights 1 500 km or less;

If easyJet are able to offer you re-routing on an alternative flight to your final destination, the arrival time of which does not exceed the scheduled arrival time of the flight originally booked;

· By two hours, in respect of all flights of 1500 km or less

then easyJet will reduce the amount of compensation above by 50%.

Notice of Rights - Regulation EC261/2004 (http://easyjet.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5155/)

[ExXB]

From the same web-page, just a little higher up.


DENIED BOARDING
In the unlikely event that easyJet reasonably expects to deny boarding on a flight, it shall first call volunteers to surrender their reservations in exchange for benefits offered by easyJet. If there is an insufficient number of volunteers, easyJet will deny boarding to passengers against their will and the passenger will be entitled to the rights set out below. The provisions herein do not apply to those passengers who have been denied boarding for any reason other than 'overbooked'.

[DaveReidUK]

The provisions herein do not apply to those passengers who have been denied boarding for any reason other than 'overbooked'.I would assume that the above is intended to refer to any airline's right to refuse to carry passengers who are drunk, abusive, violent, etc, without any compensation being payable.

But technically you're right - it's true that the T&Cs don't have specific provisions for compensating passengers who have been denied boarding because they are male rather than female. :O

[ExXB]

The regulation itself excepts 'health, safety and security' but there are other reasons - such as an equipment downgrade (A320-A319), or the case in hand, where boarding can be denied for reasons other than overbooking.

Somewhat disingenuous for EZY to word it this way, it is misleading.

[EEngr]

... they could have just thrown the batteries overboard.
;)

[occasional]

Squeezy is hoping you are ignorant of the Regulation. They win if you are.

Pax were quite entitled to refuse, but obviously NONE had read the t's & c's of their contract with the carrier.

I expect one reason they got no volunteers at £100 was because some were aware of their rights.

As I have already pointed out, it has nothing to do with T & C"s or rights. There is normally no reason to insist on your rights even if you are aware of what they might be.

Some of you are beginning to sound like the "know your rights" pain-in-the-necks that have caused the quality of life to deteriorate substantially over recent decades.

[ExXB]

Well, you don't know me - so you don't know if I'm a pain in the neck or not.

I disagree strongly with the EC's Regulation 261, not only is it poorly written and subject to interpretation it is intended to be punitive. Why should anyone get compensation if they have suffered no damages. Why should anyone have their compensation capped if their damages exceed what is written in 261?

However the Regulation is there and with a series of rulings by the ECJ has made it much worse, from an airline's perspective. The bad news can get even worse. Practices by the airlines to ignore or delay (http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2013/01/compensation-claims?fsrc=rss) compensation claims or this case where a large airline is seen to be cheating (IMHO) their passengers by the media almost certainly invites the Commission and the Parliament to put more teeth into their Regulation.

I think Easy is being 'penny wise and pound foolish' here. They know the law, but they think it's better to cheat than to play fair ball.

And speaking of balls, next time you disagree with my views please remember: Play the ball, not the player.

[occasional]

ExXB,

You appear to be convinced that the function of an airline passenger is to obtain the maximum compensation from the airline. I am simply suggesting that this is not the case.

You also appear to be trying to make a point about the payment of compensation by airlines. I am happy to agree with you that this should be straightforward and without argument.

However what is needed is a system which ensures that the people who are bumped are those who are least inconvenienced by being bumped. For that you need an auction - statutory payments are simply not relevant, other than as a backstop if for some reason the auction does not work.

[cockney steve]

[QUOTE][needed is a system which ensures that the people who are bumped are those who are least inconvenienced/QUOTE]
I'd suggest that a P.A. announcement offering £x to any /the first yy no. of volunteers to take a later flight,is just such a scheme.

As the pax were willing to establish the value of the inconvenience among themselves, the carrier left them to it and mitigated their loss.

i don't argue it was morally wrong....If you went to tesco for bananas and they were 50p/pound, Im, sure you would not seek out the manager to tell him Asda was charging 98 and therefore he was losing48p/pound,

Assuming you are not mentally subnormal (a fair bet as your post is legible and literate) YOU WOULD MAKE THE SAVING ...After paying, you may well have confided in the cashier that these were half the competitors' price

Customers still got their journey...some got a cheap / free /remunerated journey and staff did their best to make sure their employer lost as little as possible in the deal.

[QUOTE][Or are you suggesting gender quotas on every flight ?/QUOTE]

Certainly not. I'm pointing out that the arbitrary average weight assumption is outmoded and as it would appear that passenger aircraft are actually reaching weight-restrictions before they run out of space, the basis of charge should use both factors,

Excess hold-baggage is charged, why not excess cabin weight?
a fully loaded plane of rugby players may have 20% empty seats but still raise full revenue... a flight of pigmies would fill all the seats but leave a large weight-margin for freight.
Any better suggestions?

[Agaricus bisporus]

the arbitrary average weight assumption is outmoded and as it would appear that passenger aircraft are actually reaching weight-restrictions before they run out of space

Average weights are very far from arbitrary and there is no indication that they are outmoded.
They are very carefully researched (this being aviation it shouldn't come as a surprise) and regularly tested for accuracy. It is no more than a simple statistical analysis, after all and ours were upped a yearvorvthree ack when it was found that the demographic info showed people getting heavier. Average weights might not work with a small commuter aircraft but again a simple statistical analysis will show quite remarkable accuracy given enough seats fur the average to take effect. We ave also run an actual weight trial where weighing pads were placed on stand and the a/c taxied onto them to check reality against paper wights. Some dozens of flights were measured and the accuracy was surprising, often within 100kg of the calculated weight. On a 60T aeroplane you can barely measure the fuel contents to that accuracy so it's effectively deadbeat and vastly simpler than weighing everything which would neither be practical nor achieve anything.

Anyway, dare i say that the point is not so much to ensure the a/c is NEVER overweight but to have a system that is both practical in use and ensures that inadvertent overweight conditions caused by the use of averages occurs so seldom and on such a scale as not to cause a safety issue.
In reality a 70T A 320 or 737's performance is barely going to notice a 500kg variation/overload even in the engine fail condition so there s actually quite a lot of margin. That's Not to say you can fudge the figures, dishonesty is not allowed
But variations within the statistics of averages are catered for. Does that make sense?