Heavier people should pay more to fly
theage.com.au
Heavier people should pay more to fly
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Re: Heavier people should pay more to fly
#2Of course, while a weight surcharge may be a good idea in theory, it won't be easy to implement.
No, it won't be. Also, I'd guess that the weight of a passenger is small compared to the weight of plane required to add an extra seat to a plane.
All of which is to say I don't think this will start making sense until fuel prices go up by at least a factor of ten.
Re: Heavier people should pay more to fly
#3Ultimately while the principle is good - and, as an overweight person, I'd have no problem paying more if it was done fairly - no airline would ever introduce this fairly. Once they've raised the price for fatter people, why, as a business, would they lower the price for thinner people to balance it out? Why not just take more profit?
Think back to when smoking was banned on most airlines, the airlines didn't think "great, now we can give our customers an even better service for the same price but without that smell that non-smokers hate", they thought "cool, now we can massively cut down on how much air circulation we do, meaning less in-plane oxygen, and keep more profit for ourselves".
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This debate may sound discriminatory, but in fact what economists term price discrimination - charging consumers who buy essentially the same product a different price - is a common feature in the modern market.
Surely the argument is that you aren't charging consumers differently for the same product, you're charging them differently for different products - the same way you pay more when shipping a heavier package through a courier firm or USPS/Royal Mail.
Re: Heavier people should pay more to fly
#4While the idea may make sense on paper, would this really save money?
To do this, airlines would have to weigh passengers before they fly and then charge them a surcharge based on what they weigh (say that everything up to 120 there is a flat fee and then you pay for every pound over).
Think about how much man power that would take. It would greatly slow down flying even more, unless of course airports got much bigger and had considerably more staff.
From the airlines' perspectives this doesn't make sense. It may make sense in the abstract if you're a smaller passenger, but would an airline really want to have hundreds of possible SKUs for each flight?
Asking someone who is big to pay for a second seat doesn't require a lot on an airlines part, but the idea of paying by how much you weigh would require a lot of additional resources.
Re: Heavier people should pay more to fly
#5Interesting that they don't mention luggage, which if we're talking about weight is a significant factor.
For example, my wife weighs 105lbs but has been known to bring her weight in luggage (not kidding). I weigh 240lbs and usually bring a laptop and a couple changes of clothes in a small carry-on.
Only way to implement this (unimplementable in reality) idea would be to charge for the total weight being transported, passenger and luggage.
Re: Heavier people should pay more to fly
#6This is pretty unenforceable, but could work if you counted passenger weight as passenger + carry on baggage, and merely set a limit on that (above which you have to pay a surcharge). That way you're not inherently charging heavier people more, but rather limiting how much baggage they can take as a result.
By setting this limit appropriately, you could ensure you're never forcing anyone to pay extra (as long as they're not morbidly obese), as long as they take an appropriate amount of carry-on baggage.
Re: Heavier people should pay more to fly
#7Many airlines have some type of policy in place for this. It is usually more about how big a passenger is, rather than pure weight (although the two are related). Of course, airlines, the bastions of customer service that they are, can't get it right...
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/kevin-smith-fat-fly/story?id=983726...
Re: Heavier people should pay more to fly
#8I've been saying this for awhile, not because of fuel prices but because of comfort. It is rude for an overweight person to spill into adjacent seats.
Just like it is rude for overweight people to drive up the cost of health care because they refuse to take care of their own bodies.
It's a touchy subject, but I think we have a lot to gain as a society by telling people it's not OK to be lazy and fat, instead of silently judging them. (Save yourself the "Some people can't help it!" argument. No one is buying that the 33.8% of obese Americans fall into that category - it's a choice for them.)
Re: Heavier people should pay more to fly
#9[deleted]
Re: Heavier people should pay more to fly
#10The article seems to miss one key point that would make implementing this much more complex. While we have some control over our BMI (weight to height ratio) we don't have control over our height.
I have two friends who are 5' tall and 6'5" tall. The 6'5" male, while still being quite fit, comes in at a solid 210-220 easy I'd guess, which would (under a 'weight only' policy) incur a surcharge for him. The 5'0" female has a little extra weight probably being about 130lbs. She's 90lbs less but more "obese" than the male.
Variations like this would make this type of policy very hard to implement in reality.