"Non-Binary" passengers

[Smythe]

I noticed that the airlines are now letting the nonbinary passengers on board (as a result of the California law). When loading the aircraft, do the airlines now have to use the worst case weight of the male passenger for all?

Airlines are planning to present travelers who don't identify as either male or female more options when they book their flights.
Airlines for America, an industry group that represents some of the largest U.S. carriers, including American, Alaska, JetBlue, and the International Air Transport Association, which represents most of the world's airlines, recently approved standards for nonbinary passenger identification.

[Vessbot]

I wasn't aware that they were previously being denied boarding, in any state.

[Officer Kite]

I know what a male looks like and i know what a female does too, how may we identify the non binary folk among us?

[nonsense]

I know what a male looks like and i know what a female does too, how may we identify the non binary folk among us?


You make a best guess at each passenger's gender, use the applicable weight estimate, and rely upon there being roughly equal numbers of m->f and f->m mis-assignments?

I'm old enough to remember when ALL passengers were analog...

[Smythe]

There are already several US States where the Drivers License is not allowed to be used to board aircraft. I am unclear the Federal stance on this whole gender thing. (notice that it is now Mx, instead of Mr/Ms/Mrs!

I was just wondering about loading, as such programs use the male/female/children standard weights in the load profile.

a bit OT, but I just saw where a college football team players were staggered about the aircraft due to their average weight of 300 pounds, even though they were the only ones on the charter aircraft.

[infrequentflyer789]

I know what a male looks like and i know what a female does too, how may we identify the non binary folk among us?

Aside from those that don't look obviously like male or female - of which I have met a fair few in my life - I think the whole point is that "non binary folk" may in fact look male or female but something else about them doesn't fit into the same pigeon hole. Maybe the genitals don't match the looks, or the hormones, or the genetics, or the legal identity, or maybe any or all of them are ambiguous.

Or to turn it round, if you know what a male looks like and what a female looks like, can you explain what an XX/XY mosaic looks like - since they are neither male nor female, they must look different, right?

One thing I am sure about, I've never met another human being I couldn't clearly identify as being another human being - too often we seem to lose sight of that.

[nicolai]

This opens up a whole new security - airline collaboration opportunity:

Identify each passenger as they approach the body scanner by scanning their boarding pass. While nude-o-scoping them, calculate the volume of their body, which will give a good estimate of weight.

Classify them as child/small adult /large adult instead of the current child/woman/man. Feed that into the load planning software!

Simples!

[FlightDetent]

nice idea, nicolai.

Simpler version for the less technologically advanced peoples: Anyone wishing not to disclose their biological sex is to provide their weight at the time of travel. Only a small change to the software: Weight = std.M / std.F / act.nnn kg.

[infrequentflyer789]

Identify each passenger as they approach the body scanner by scanning their boarding pass. While nude-o-scoping them, calculate the volume of their body, which will give a good estimate of weight.


Why not just f***ing weigh them in the scanner - simple scales (or weighbridge in some cases), proven tech not rocket science.

For that matter, why not just do a visual estimate of each passengers weight at the gate, rough groups would do (anorexic / thin / normal / overweight / whale). You'll probably get a far better estimate doing that than using gender averages as a proxy for the information you actually want/need.

[Smythe]

Just try weighing passengers and see what happens!

[infrequentflyer789]

Just try weighing passengers and see what happens!

What do you think will happen?

Passengers are already scanned, x-rayed, de-shoed, de-belted, groped, deprived of liquids and arbitrary items of luggage, and herded for hours through maze-like shopping malls that might have an airport on the other side if they are lucky. Yet they keep coming in ever increasing numbers.

[double_barrel]

I've often wondered why aircraft cannot determine their own actual mass while on the ground. A simple load cell in the undercarriage does not seem like rocket science compared to all the other sensors onboard.

[SloppyJoe]

Rather than ask passengers if they are male or female whilst booking, it would be far simpler to ask.

Born with a penis ◻︎
Born without a penis ◻︎

It is a factual question about anatomy.

[meleagertoo]

I've often wondered why aircraft cannot determine their own actual mass while on the ground. A simple load cell in the undercarriage does not seem like rocket science compared to all the other sensors onboard.
Unfortunately almost any amount of wind would render the readings useless.

[Goldenrivett]

I've often wondered why aircraft cannot determine their own actual mass while on the ground. A simple load cell in the undercarriage does not seem like rocket science compared to all the other sensors onboard.

We've had them since the early 1970s.
https://patents.google.com/patent/US3701279A/en

STAN was a gross error check on taxi out. If there was a significant error, then we had to return to stand and investigate.

[nicolai]

Born with a penis ◻︎
Born without a penis ◻︎


If only genetics, human growth, and anatomy were that simple. Unfortunately they are not. Google up "Intersex", "androgen insensitivity", "Klinefelter syndrome" (XXY, XXXY, XXXXY), "XYY syndrome", "46,XX/46,XY" for some of the medical aspects, let alone the social aspects.

[infrequentflyer789]

Rather than ask passengers if they are male or female whilst booking, it would be far simpler to ask.

Born with a penis ◻︎
Born without a penis ◻︎

It is a factual question about anatomy.

With what relevance?

It sure isn't weight - no matter how much we might like it to, it simply doesn't weigh that much. Most breasts probably weigh more (I can say definitely in only a few cases...), in fact the breasts of the people with penises probably weigh more in some cases.

Born with testes might be a better question since the testosterone affects size, musculature, etc. - but that simply doesn't correspond to born with penis (ask the IAAF...). So what are you asking the question for?

[Vessbot]

If only genetics, human growth, and anatomy were that simple. Unfortunately they are not. Google up "Intersex", "androgen insensitivity", "Klinefelter syndrome" (XXY, XXXY, XXXXY), "XYY syndrome", "46,XX/46,XY" for some of the medical aspects, let alone the social aspects.

His suggestion is consistent with all of that, and it gets around it all by simply discriminating the physical factor that correlates with weight without getting entangled with definitions of sex, gender, social/personal identity, hidden genetic syndromes, etc.

[infrequentflyer789]

His suggestion is consistent with all of that, and it gets around it all by simply discriminating the physical factor that correlates with weight without getting entangled with definitions of sex, gender, social/personal identity, hidden genetic syndromes, etc.

Unfortunately his suggestion is that people declare what they were born with, which is not feasible as most people can't remember their birth. A significant minority of people have surgery soon after birth which changes what they were born with. Some of those are not told this, and therefore do not even know the information he says is needed.

Also, his chosen physical factor isn't directly linked to size and weight. Testosterone levels, which is what sport seems to be settling on as the discriminator (not without controversy), are. Much as some feminists see the penis as the oppressor, it appears that in reality it is the cojones that maketh the man (or at least the person not allowed to compete as a woman).

Still not a good question to ask, as some people don't know they've got them, but happily we can just give every passenger a quick blood test to find out...

[Chu Chu]

If you compare obesity rates to transgender rates, it's pretty obvious which will have a bigger effect on accuracy of assumed weights.

[DaveReidUK]

If you compare obesity rates to transgender rates, it's pretty obvious which will have a bigger effect on accuracy of assumed weights.

Quite so. Agonising over ways of mitigating the loadsheet impact of the occasional non-binary passenger is a good example of a solution looking for a problem.

[oceancrosser]

I am unclear the Federal stance on this whole gender thing. (notice that it is now Mx, instead of Mr/Ms/Mrs!

.

So the Mechanics are now... :ooh:

[double_barrel]

I noticed that the airlines are now letting the nonbinary passengers on board (as a result of the California law).


I am unclear the Federal stance on this whole gender thing. (notice that it is now Mx, instead of Mr/Ms/Mrs!

I call BS trolling on this. The fantasy link to aviation safety is just an excuse to parade the OP's strange worries about how other people choose to describe themselves.

[EEngr]

Weight them all and let the loadmaster sort it out.

Weighing in the security scanner could be problematic. That would require some sort of database entry permission from TSA screening into individual airlines passenger databases. It's feasible, but I don't want to be the software DER that has to certify such a system.

[Peter47]

If what Smythe says about drivers licences not being acceptable ID in several states is true, doesn't that make life difficult for those without passports, which I think is quite common with US domestic pax.

The proportion of non binary passengers can't be very high. Treating them all as male (for weight purposes only) shouldn't have any great effect on load sheets (unless you have a group going to a LGBT convention).

Double barrel makes a good point. I believe that the 1973 tube stock which serves Heathrow was designed to weigh its passenger load which was then used to adjust the breaking. Load weighing is used to determine passenger load in calculating railway overcrowding. You obviously need to calibrate the system properly that that shouldn't be a problem with modern technology. Obviously if you have miscalculated the weight of pax & cargo you may have to unload something before taking off and that could create headaches. I don't know what a system would weigh or cost but it could have avoided a number of incident reports that we have seen recently.

[nicolai]

The proportion of non binary passengers can't be very high. Treating them all as male (for weight purposes only) shouldn't have any great effect on load sheets

Indeed. My flippant comments about security-airline cooperation aside (surely proposing such an unlikely friendship is clearly humorous :) ), this is the pragmatic solution.

It's my understanding that some airlines already do this for all passengers. For example, AA (as far as I know still) assumes all passengers are adult male except in situations where W&B is critical and then they start correcting the data for the passenger count and seating to show children and women accurately. For example the MD-80 balance is critical with low passenger counts - adults must be at the front, cargo or bags loaded into the front hold first, or the aircraft might sit on its tail. If any aircraft is near MTOW then correcting some passengers from adult to child might bring the weight down enough to allow an easy flight plan.

So rounding up is already done in many cases, and rounding the weight of some passengers up because their actual M/F weight is not clear from the booking information will only be a minor part of the existing rounding-up being done for convenience.

[EEngr]

drivers licences not being acceptable ID in several states
This is true in Washington State for a basic drivers license. However, we have available the option of obtaining 'enhanced' licenses/ID cards which are accepted for domestic flight boarding and returning through customs from Canada and Mexico. I think these other several states offer similar options. I imagine that a number of people who don't possess a passport and haven't the foresight to obtain enhanced ID will be inconvenienced. But somebody has to ride the Greyhound buses.

I don't have an enhanced drivers license (but I do have a passport and passport card). This allows me to hand my d/l over to a less trustworthy party as ID and not have the biometric data surreptitiously downloaded from the card.

[slacktide]

There are already several US States where the Drivers License is not allowed to be used to board aircraft.

That statement is false. All 50 states drivers licenses can be used to board domestic flights. There are 11 states who still issue drivers licenses that are not compliant with the REAL ID act. All 11 of those states have been granted extensions while they revise their licensing process, and DHS continues to accept their non-compliant licenses for boarding in the meantime.

[Blackfriar]

As a former despatcher responsible for load sheets, do we still use 75Kg male 65Kg female 35Kg child and 10Kg infant? I think these are probably way out of date given the size of people today. 75Kg is under 12 stone. The great god Google tells me UK average for men is 84Kg (Office of National Statistics, 2010).

[MarkerInbound]

In the FAA world it's been either 190 pounds during summer/195 during winter for everyone or 200/205 males, 179/184 females and 83/87 ages 2-13 since 2005. Those numbers include 16 pounds for a carry on bag.

[dogsridewith]

What is the descriptive logic in this term "non-binary?" Aren't all creatures but hermaphrodites non-binary?

[Old King Coal]

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/960x913/uj4h09kexia21_f2d88175e0c4d32abdd171695c35762556ea467a.png

[Blackfriar]

In the FAA world it's been either 190 pounds during summer/195 during winter for everyone or 200/205 males, 179/184 females and 83/87 ages 2-13 since 2005. Those numbers include 16 pounds for a carry on bag.

Thanks, that seems more realistic.

[Mk 1]

As a quick check - a weighbridge in the aerobridge to the aircraft. All it would need to do is calculate total weight (therefore individuals wouldn't get their nose out of joint). Ensure gate staff don't pass through the weighbridge if they are not boarding the flight (go around through a staff only taped off area). Flight/cabin crew go once only through the gate. They can weigh 62.5t trucks on the highway to a reasonable degree of accuracy as they pass over the weighbridges here in Australia at 60kph - surely people can be measured to within a kilo as they walk through. Do it at the entrance to the aerobridge so the process of scanning boarding passes spreads out the passenger flow.

[double_barrel]

For cattle class the solution is already in use:


BJ__OFgTLt0

Just get them to swipe their boarding cards instead of the RFID tag

[VinRouge]

As a quick check - a weighbridge in the aerobridge to the aircraft. All it would need to do is calculate total weight (therefore individuals wouldn't get their nose out of joint). Ensure gate staff don't pass through the weighbridge if they are not boarding the flight (go around through a staff only taped off area). Flight/cabin crew go once only through the gate. They can weigh 62.5t trucks on the highway to a reasonable degree of accuracy as they pass over the weighbridges here in Australia at 60kph - surely people can be measured to within a kilo as they walk through. Do it at the entrance to the aerobridge so the process of scanning boarding passes spreads out the passenger flow.
Employees could be given an RFID tag which is scanned either end of the bridge. simples fix.