Weigh Every Passenger?

[PAXboy]

British Start Up (https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/airlines-weigh-passengers-check-in-baggage-cargo-balance-a8860071.html)In the future, every airline passenger will be weighed: that is the claim of a British technology company which is seeking to reduce the amount of fuel burnt by jet aircraft. At present, airlines use “assumed mass” – estimating the total weight of the passengers by using set figures. Typically each passenger is assumed to weigh 88kg.Airlines may use gender to refine this figure, allowing 93kg for men and 75kg for women.
It is not the weighing, it's the security of your data. The suggestion is to hold it only till the flight has landed. And we can be sure that they will promise to take great care of the data ...:hmm:

[Atlas Shrugged]

You could probably stand in the middle of a puddle of AVTUR and throw a lit match into it, and not do anything....but I don't see any particular reason to do that either...........

[Chesty Morgan]

And how is doing that supposed to reduce the amount of fuel burnt?!

[YorkshireTyke]

All a load of Boll***s anyway, every flight takes off heavy than the accepted loadsheet, no point weighing passengers without weighing their handbaggage stuffed into the overhead locker, or the various amounts of Duty Free liquor that many carry. Not many 93 Kg men in some countries ( no names, no pack drill)

If 93 Kg is the Male standard, how long before "certain airlines" start charging $10 per kilo over this standard ? and not giving a refund on the price paid for the ticket to woman weighing less than 75Kg. ?

Airlines have survived for many years using "assumed" weights, which probably evens out to something close to the correct total weight, since they stopped weighing everybody. The system ain't broke, so don't fix it.

Better things to think about, like why pilots can't cope when some new-fangled digital device tries to take over - sadly successfully in two recent disasters.

[meleagertoo]

All a load of Boll***s anyway, every flight takes off heavy than the accepted loadsheet, no point weighing passengers without weighing their handbaggage stuffed into the overhead locker, or the various amounts of Duty Free liquor that many carry. Not many 93 Kg men in some countries ( no names, no pack drill)

You were happy to use the phrase - so I will too.

All a load of Boll***s

My previous company, a large household name loco did a comprehensive trial a few years back in which incoming and outgoing aircraft were briefly stopped on pressure pads placed just off the parking stand for weighing to ascertain acuracy of the assumed weights and fuel uplifts/burns etc.

Accuracy of the pads was something like +/- 20Kg on 60Tons.

Accuracy of the assumed weights proved astonishingly good, the results produced a bell-curve of course but none were anywhere close to causing concern for accuracy on any criteria, performance, limitatins etc. I forget the numbers but istr the average error was in the order of a couple of hundred Kg. Infinitessimal on a 60T aeroplane. In any case it was well inside the accuracy of the fuel gauges.

So I call Bolls to your claim, sir!

[Kiltrash]

Went through Bologna airport and pre cases through the x ray all passengers had to scan the boarding pass and put their cabin cases into a scale machine However back packs hand bags laptops etc did not need to be weighed
I assumed it was so the airline could get a better picture of the weight of tbe flight....or....was it to detect over weight cabin bags so some form of excess charge?

[corsaman]

Departing Malpensa for Luton circa 1979, on a Dan Air BAC 1-11 500, we were all weighed individually, much to my Mum's horror! Ski flight, packed to the gunwhales.

[PAXboy]

About 20 years ago, on an internal flight in South Africa, there was voluntary weighing. I gathered that SAA did this periodically to provide updated weights to other airlines (as well as themselves) and got paid for it.

[BalusKaptan]

I don't know the specifics of other modern air transport jets except the 747-8 and (many) 400s that come with W & B computers feed by inducers in the landing gear. They are very accurate and will show up any discrepancies.
I know many people like to doubt them but that comes from 30+ years ago when they were notoriously inaccurate. That's not the case now. The MEL allows you to go with the computer indicating you are not in the envelope (or not indicating at all...very rare) as long as you follow the Ops Manual/MEL procedure. Every time I have had a W & B out of tolerance then followed the correct checking procedure, which can be quite involved, it has shown that the computer was correct!
Because after following the correct backup procedure you can accept a u/s W & B computer under the MEL, engineering love to write it up as " W & B computer unserviceable". Many a long discussion has then taken place while I patiently explain that when a system is telling you something you don't like you cannot just call it "unserviceable".

[Harry Wayfarers]

I can't see it working, Ops/Dispatch departments need to prepare CFP's (Computerised Flight Plans) well in advance of crew report and passenger check-in, in my previous lives we entered the data for the CFP's perhaps the day before and programmed each CFP to be released at an appropriate time for the most recent weather update.

Recalling one IT operator in particular we worked on nominal weights, we guesstimated an equal number of males to females and then a percentage of kids, when a crew reports for duty they are presented with the CFP and pretty much the first question the Captain is asked is how much fuel he/she wants and the aircraft gets fuelled using the nominal weights, if it was necessary to wait until check-in closes and the check-in staff do their sums before a CFP can be produced for the Captain to then decide upon a fuel figure before a bowser is called, by which point the fire service shall also be required for refuelling with passengers on board, well ...

Who dreams this stuff up? :)

[PAXboy]

The person who dreamed it up has software to sell that will, allegedly, save the carrier money ... real life is not always as salesmen see it. :rolleyes:

[Buster15]

I fully support this and can see no logical reason why it should not be done.
I would also fully support the airlines making individuals who weight more than a specific figure having to buy two seats.
Why should I who weigh 65kg have to tolerate an obese person sitting next to me spread themselves into my space.

[Chesty Morgan]

I fully support this and can see no logical reason why it should not be done.
I would also fully support the airlines making individuals who weight more than a specific figure having to buy two seats.
Why should I who weigh 65kg have to tolerate an obese person sitting next to me spread themselves into my space.
How is weighing somebody going to stop them sitting next to you?

[Harry Wayfarers]

The person who dreamed it up has software to sell that will, allegedly, save the carrier money ... real life is not always as salesmen see it. :rolleyes:

In that previous life of mine, when we worked on males/females/kids, the check-in staff worked on nominal weights also, I took on additional duties and one of those was comparing our guesstimated weights against the actual loadsheet weights and over the course of a season we were able to tweek and reduce our nominal weights by perhaps 2kg per passenger.

But, on a Y148 aircraft, on a 4 hour sector, reducing the guesstimated payload by 2kg per passenger, 296kg in total, would reduce the amount of fuel required by just 40kg which, in turn, would reduce fuel burn by just 6kg when the truth of the matter is that whatever the fuel figure is on the CFP the Captain rounds it up the next round figure, no fuel would be saved whatsoever.