haha.. double my weight !

It was just a thought about the ex-AirTran aircraft....

I think the discussion about the Irish VLCC was something along the lines of as long as they were flying comparatively shorter stage lengths and so were rarely carrying full fuel then it could be that the aircraft never departed at the manufacturer's MTOW....Or something like that....

But as I said, just a thought...

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Interested PAX here. I always wondered what the average figures for calculating passenger weight are. Is that a global standard?

Or maybe had to relocate a few to accommodate mini horses as service animals as announced today.....

In the USA it's 190 pounds in the summer and 195 in the winter. There are separate male/female numbers of 200/205 and 179/184 but everyone I know just uses the average. Children up to 12 are 82/87 but most times they are just counted at 190/195 also. Sometimes when trying to carry a jumpseating crewmember on a weight restricted flight I've heard Captains asking if any of the pax are children. Two kinder would allow the jumpseater.

No idea if the numbers are standard around the world. The FAA raised the numbers several years ago after a Beech 1900 crash in CLT. They said they would monitor American weights and adjust as necessary.

There is another European LCC who does/did this. Not sure about a previous discussion, but they registered lower Max weights for the fleet. The weight of the aircraft was what it weighed but the max payload was reduced. From memory, the structural limit was around 71T, one group reduced to around 64T, another to around 62.5T and some more to around 60.5T. No idea of the saving it generated but with large fleets, even small amounts will help and go straight to the bottom line.

A few years back one of the UK locos ran an exercise to check the accuracy of their weights. Aircraft were weighed in the hangar during maintenance to verify actual weight against the recorded figures and also selected at random as they entered the apron after a flight and directed onto a stand equipped with pressure pads. They were marshalled carefully onto the three pads and after about a minute, if even that, were able to disembark pax normally. Results were correlated with the flight papaerwork and processed.

Results showd the standard weights used were remarkably good, iirc something like a 2-300Kg deviation from the paper figure which on a 60t aeroplane is extremely accurate.

Southwest 737 Short Grounding in September
 

Temporary grounding of 115 737-800 at Southwest took place due to weight difference of 75lbs in IT vs. actual mass. Took some days until half of the fleet returned to service. Reported to be a difference <0.05% of MTOW.

from aero international magazine

Safety matters, but isn't this a bit surprising?

This works primarily in Europe, where landing fees and Eurocontrol charges are all driven by a MTOW based formula. In the US these charges are per movement or category based, so playing with the weight figures for a given aircraft model has no effect on operating costs.

Would it not make sense for the flight crew to complete their own weight and balance calculation using an EFB or similar device? This way the airline can ensure that they have up to date records of their own fleet weights without having to worry about disseminating the information to all of their handling agents and auditing it. The handling agent present a loading form with passenger weights, distribution and load in compartments for the flight crew to enter into their own EFB. Similar devices are used for computing takeoff performance, surely adding a WB function wouldn't be too difficult?

And its not just in Europe. The AFM will likely show 70,999 or 71,999 for instance. This is not an unusual occurrence.
On the Airbus, you have multiple WVs.

Here are the numbers for Canada. Note that the adult weights in the table include a 13 lb allowance for carry-on:

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....6342b9b58c.png

https://tc.canada.ca/en/aviation/ref...-ac-no-700-022

andrasz

Had some 727s at an old job, exNW airframe converted freighters, the landing weight had purposely been lowered to reduce the landing fee paid. We sent a check to Boeing and in a few weeks had new placards raising the max landing weight 4000 pounds.

I remember several years back taking a co-worker to the airport for a flight to Sydney on a very small airline. Earlier that year they had experienced a fatal crash. One thing I had never seen before was weighing each passenger and when everyone was checked in, assigning seats. Second was that the pilot got a fuel sample from the fueling truck, took it into a back room, and after a few minutes came out and gave the fueler the okay to proceed. Too bad it took a crash to tidy things up.

It's hard to imagine taking 66 jets abruptly off the line when as many available jets are roosting in the sun at VCV, plus the now recertified 34 Max jets.

txl No here is not a global standard; there are 'regulator' standards and should an airline choose to do so, they can seek approval for their own standard passenger and baggage weights. There is a strict process and mathematical model behind the derivation of the standard weights published, used and approved. Typically they are derived from a study of real passengers (actually weighing many hundreds if not thousands across a population at the aircraft side, including all hand baggage) and the numbers run through standardisation methodologies with a confidence interval of 98%. Meaning that the average weights applied for Male, Female, Child and Infant (including hand baggage) is accurate to within +/- 1%. Same for those that use a standard, as opposed to actual, baggage weight for mass and balance calculations prior to a flight departure.