Should fatties pay more to fly?

chewmylegoff

misskool wrote: »

yes, it's the daily fail but it's happening...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2302883/Airline-fat-fliers-pay-Passengers-pay-fixed-price-kilogram.html

i saw this earlier.

i thought it was quite timely, what with it being early april, so i looked up air samoa on wikipedia, and it appears that air samoa closed back in 2003. however, there is a proper website and someone has now edited wikipedia to state that air samoa was "recreated at some point" with no reference...

i can't find mention of their flight codes anywhere.

although they do appear to have a website that functions to some extent, i'm going with "hoax".

Tigsteroonie

For every kg of weight I lose before going on holiday, please can I have an extra free kg of luggage allowance?

new_home_owner_3

I'm sure they would love charging overweight people more money, that's fine but will they give discounts for people who are lighter?

I doubt it, its just another way to take extra money and not give anything back, we all know extra weight may use more fuel, but it works both ways.

MrsE_2

They were discussing this on the news this morning.

If you're 18 stone & you pay the 18 stone rate....... Do you get an 18 stone seat then?
Because if people pay because they are bigger, then they are entitled to a proportionally bigger seat.

PaulF81

MrsE wrote: »

They were discussing this on the news this morning.

If you're 18 stone & you pay the 18 stone rate....... Do you get an 18 stone seat then?
Because if people pay because they are bigger, then they are entitled to a proportionally bigger seat.

Why would you be? They are charging for additional weight. If you want additional space, pay for business class.

MrsE_2

PaulF81 wrote: »

Why would you be? They are charging for additional weight. If you want additional space, pay for business class.

I think it's reasonable to equate extra weight & extra space.
I would think it only fair the more you pay the bigger the space you buy.

I do try to upgrade on long haul flights because cattle class are so awful. They must be hell if you're obese!

PaulF81

MrsE wrote: »

I think it's reasonable to equate extra weight & extra space.
I would think it only fair the more you pay the bigger the space you buy.

I do try to upgrade on long haul flights because cattle class are so awful. They must be hell if you're obese!

Well, from a longhaul pilot involved in airline management, weight does not equate to space. We usually operate bulked out rather than weight limited.

The majority of the airline industry is operating off sub 5% profit margins at the moment, so financial pressure dominates decision making.

zagfles

PaulF81 wrote: »

Well, from a longhaul pilot involved in airline management, weight does not equate to space. We usually operate bulked out rather than weight limited.

The majority of the airline industry is operating off sub 5% profit margins at the moment, so financial pressure dominates decision making.

But if the airline charges per kilo, ie a 100kg person pays double a 50kg person, then they should obviously be entitled to double the space.

Twopints

But is that twice by volume or by area? :beer:

cotleigh

Most of this clamour for "charging passengers by body weight" is just petty vindictiveness and does not really make sense economically.

OK, if someone is soooo fat that that they actually take up two seats, then it seems fair enough to charge them for the extra seat.

Airlines charge by the seat. This is why a 3 year old kid's fare is the same as a fully grown adult's: because the aircraft has a fixed number of seats that can be sold.

The main reason that airlines charge such a lot per kilo of "excess baggage" is simply "because they can" - the amount charged is many, many times any actual additional "cost of carrying an extra kilogram" in terms of extra fuel used.

Particularly with low-cost airlines, they have to offer cheap basic ticket prices to compete, and then make the money back in charges for as many "extras" as they can think up.

If they ever did start charging every passenger purely by the combined weight of him and his luggage, it would have some odd consequences: families travelling with 3 little kids (weighing less than one average adult man, say) would pay a lot less than they do now.

But this would mean that airlines would have to charge most adults more to cover their costs, especially on holiday flights with lots of families.

This may not be what the slimmer adults had in mind when they shouted for "charge the fatties by the kilo"!