laurashe

I understand that part of ticket price made by manny factors, but one of them is fuel, and more load means more fuel consumption.
Why somebody 50 kg weight is paying same price as somebody who is 170 kg, but if the person with 50 kg weight want to get an extra bag of 10 kg must pay for it, if it's 20 kg pay even more?

davidjohnson6

Ryanair proposed to have a "fat tax" in 2009. They decided not to implement it. Various anti-discrimination laws might be one of the reasons why
https://www.theguardian.com/business...-obese-fat-tax

DaveReidUK

If it was legal to base fares on passenger weight, rest assured airlines would do that too.

laurashe

I am looking to make an article about that subject, can somebody help me with more arguments of the technical part and anything else related to subject?
From my understanding slim people are subsidizing people with bigger weight on the airplane traveling, and i think it's fine to help other people from time to time , but i think it's discrimination to take a part of my money to pay for someone else that i don't know without a my agreement.

tail wheel

Your concept of basing charges/fares on weight would be objectionable and, as female fares would be lower than male fares, very discriminatory in many countries.

Airlines, trains, taxis, ferries and all other modes of transport charge on a per seat cost, even though all modes of transport experience marginally greater cost as the total weight of passengers and loading increases.

[quote]"From my understanding slim people are subsidizing people with bigger weight on the airplane traveling,...."[/quote]

Your air fare entitles you to carriage to your destination in ONE seat. You have no claim, ownership or jurisdiction over what the airline does in selling the other seats available on the flight.

A ludicrous theory to suggest you have any claim for rebate or financial consideration due to your weight or size!

nomilk

Do you understand the difference between a person and a suitcase and freight?

Are you also suggesting a rebate system for long-haul passengers not eating and using the loo? Pregnant women pay double?

Or start with the basics? Can you travel without a suitcase? Can you travel without your body?

oh dear, oh, dear ...

I make it easy: Go to your supermarket and take note of units. For your school homework: Do you see things that are sold per unit? Is everything sold by weight or are there any other possibilities?

Which class are you attending? I hope you are not grown up and think of publishing such nonsense.

Hartington

How would it work? When I make the booking I decalre my weight? How many people, particularly the overweight, would tell the truth? Or would you weigh everyone on arrival at the airport - can you imagine the arguements that would ensue and the time it would take and if you had to pay for your weight at the airport and your card was refused what then?
For a fleeting moment I dod consider suggesting that seats on the plane could be different sizes with the heaviest people in the biggest seats but then I (1M82 tall) but with a "nornal" BMI would end up in a naarow seat, no thank you. Not only that but the overweight member of the family gets a bigger seat than their spouse or children so they're all over the aircraft, families would not like that.

Haven't a clue

My mother was a Hostess on Rapides post WWII. Part of her job was to weigh the passengers and allocate seats for weight snd balance purposes. She reported no one complained. She stayed on the ground when the flight departed; no catering on Lancashire Airways, and if there was, no seat for the Hostess to serve it.

SWBKCB

Clothed or unclothed weight? Why should I pay for your heavy jacket when I'm in a tshirt?

Less Hair

If some oversized person happens to sit next to you on board that passenger often will eat into your seat's "airspace". So you end up not only paying for their weight but getting even less space for yourself.

S.o.S.

Hello laurashe and welcome to the Cabin.

An interesting question but certainly one the airlines are aware of. All airlines have been adroit at finding new ways to charge us.

pax britanica

Surely under such a scheme slender pax would be or should be charged more to compensate for the fact that they are unikely to partake in buying overpriced onboard food and drink. Tall people should pay more because if everyone was under 168cm airlines could reduce seat pitch even further .

PAXboy

Airlines used to charge the same price for a seat for the whole season (perhaps three or four months) because everything was on paper and distributed around the world to thousands of agents. Then someone devised 'Yield Management'.

Having a per-seat price allows a starting point for price calculation, they then have these sorts of variables:

• Demand on the route
• Competition on the route
• Business / leisure demand on route
• Established route or new route (demand growing/steady/falling)
• Size of aircraft available to service route
• Cost of operating at the two airports
• Are there major events at destination: such as trade fairs or cities like NYC that always have demand
• If there is an F1 race that weekend - all seats into airports within a certain radius will go up for that event
• Is the destination a once-in-a-lifetime (Bucket List) such as Great Barrier Reef, Victoria Falls
• Season of the year at both ends
• etcetera
• All of these variables can be tweaked a dozen times a day or once a week - whatever they choose. They have departments whose only job is to price the seats at the right level.

They have enough variables to charge money that the weight of the pax is irrelevant. It would be a complication to add the weight at check in and then adjust the price of the ticket - what if the Pax then decides that it is then too expensive and not to go? You could have sold the seat to someone else.

Airlines review the average weight of passengers every year, I once participated in this. On an internal flight JNB-CPT, I was asked if I minded being weighed. I did not mind and the airline made some money by weighing thousands of pax and selling the information (along with the baggage weight) to other airlines.

The airlines all know that trying to charge extra to the oversized person (even if they overflow the sides of the seat) is one that will get them in court and scorched on social media. You can test this theory very easily.

SWBKCB

The industry was also highly regulated - particulalry for scheduled flights, prices were fixed for much international travel so airlines didn't compete on price

25F

I've found some worked examples (from 2012):
https://www.aircraftinteriorsinterna...art-three.html
I've only skimmed it (not *that* interested) but the take-home is that on a short-haul flight a very *heavy* passenger will add about six dollars to the fuel cost compared to the average passenger, and the very *light* passenger will cost about five dollars less. This is neither here nor there when compared to the variations in ticket price due to time of purchase.
Arguably - as height and weight and size correlate - the light, short, passenger is amply compensated for their five dollars by having a seat that is relatively large and comfortable. And the tall, heavy, passenger pays for their six dollar "discount" by having a seat that is too small for them.
Those of us who are both lighter than average and taller than average get the worst deal.
Aside - I have a friend who is *so* tall that he'd get upgraded at check-in to First Class, because it's simply impossible to fold him into an economy seat.

FlightDetent

Mirrors my recollection of extra weight / additional fuel burn cost. 20 kgs don't add up to much.

Now, if you could get all passengers to be 10 kgs slimmer, .... (and have the big weights fly on competition)

IBMJunkman

I paid by weight once. It was a 2 seater plane offering rides at 1 cent per pound at a county fair. I just gave him 3 dollars and said keep the change. It was close, though.

laurashe

IF any one want to discuss more about how fair it is and what can be done about it send me an email on [email protected]
Probably here not everyone is ready to share their opinion

tdracer

My very first air travel as a passenger they did just that (mid 1960's, DC-3). When I took helicopter tour in Hawaii several years ago they did that as well.
Checked baggage involves more than just the weight - there is considerable labor involved in handling (and if bag is overweight there is even more as the baggage handlers have to take special care to avoid potential injuries).
Besides, as others have noted, due to modern yield management, chances are the people sitting near you didn't pay the same for their ticket as you did.
I haven't heard it being done recently, but some airlines used to force people over a certain weight to buy two tickets since they couldn't fit into one seat.

Davef68

It's an interesting idea but completely impractical

The problem would be how the bleep do you actually do it. People buy tickets months in advance; If you have a self declaration of weight, then that could go up or down after booking - do you start adjusting prices at the gate based on what a person actually weighs and adding a supplementary charge (I'll not mention discounting as that's unlikely!). If Mrs Bloggs who says she weighs 50 kg turns up with a larger case, but is then weighed at 60kg, then it's more hassle for the gate staff and delays in boarding (or check in)

Then you have the actual equipment - if you are using a weighing machine to charge people based on their weight, then it will need to be a certified machine with proper verification. (Baggage checkers already fall under this requirement). The airports aren't going to want to pay for these, so it's probably down to each airline. And could (say) Easyjet use Raynair's weighers? Will the ground staff be trained to operate them? Who will be responsible for due diligence in checking calibration? And will the airlines be happy when the local Trading Standards Officer checks them. finds them out of calibration and removes their verification?