Airline's Pay by weight scheme a success

[whatmeworry]

Seems if you weigh less then 120kg you actually save money with Samoa Air.

"We find that generally speaking if you look at any operation anywhere between any destination worldwide, a person who comes in at about 120 kilos or less will always be better off to travel on a pay-by-weight system," Langton said.

Read more: Heavy hit: airline's 'pay what you weigh' scheme a success
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[moa999]

The reality is the weight of the pax and freight is a small part of the cost of the flight.

From a revenue point for the airline the key point is volumetric capacity.

Down below - ie checked baggage. Weight is used as a rough approximation for passengers as it should be for typical luggage, while freight will get assessed on both givens difference between a cubic metre pillows and metal

In the passenger compartment until pax are stacked on top of each other the floorspace is the key determinant.

Then you have the cabin baggage which is limited space and the airlines limit via small bag requirements and ocassionally weight.

The Samoan airlines policy I simply call a gimmick

 

[seanpodge]

The issue here is that Samoa Air's fleet of 3 planes are tiny. The smallest has a maximum take off weight of around 1600 kg. 1600 kg of fuel won't even get an A380 from the gate to the runway most of the time. With such planes, calculating the gross weight accurately is vital, unless one wants to have an impromptu swim mid flight.

The other issue, assuming that anti discrimination laws (from many countries) allowed it, would be how the airlines themselves verify it. For Samoa Air, with planes with a max capacity of 13 passengers, it's not that hard. But a full A380 or even a 320 would quickly turn into a farce, most likely. The other issue is that airlines, particularly the LCC operators that would be the most likely to use such a system, have been aggressively cutting costs by reducing staff and pushing people (often quite forcefully) into automated and online check in systems. Are they really going to suddenly turn all that on its head to employ staff to weigh every single passenger and their luggage? No chance that that would ending up costing more than they get back from higher fares, is there?

Most of the comments on such articles on the Fairfax websites just seem to be an excuse to beat up on fat people. Quite a few are even rather explicit about it, taking a sadistic glee in that fat/heavier people will be punished by paying more, as though society doesn't give them a hard enough time as it is.

 

[Robert K]

would it be considered discrimination against fat people if the terms of carriage is for the transportation of a set number of KG?

 

[seanpodge]

would it be considered discrimination against fat people if the terms of carriage is for the transportation of a set number of KG?

I think in the case of airlines such as Air Samoa, which are running tiny aircraft with a very low maximum weight, there would potentially be a defensible case based on safety requirements. On airlines running Airbus/Boeing services the case I suspect would fall apart pretty quickly. To take my case for example, I am about 190 cm and around 100-105 kg. The is a slight belly that could lose a few kgs, maybe up to 5, but after that I can't see how I could safely reduce my weight much further. I'm definitely not going to get down to 60-70 kg without either suffering from a terminal illness or amputating major parts of my body. It could then be said that the company is discriminating based on a non alterable characteristic of the person given that the main determining factor of my weight would be my height and skeletal structure, which can't be reduced by doing a few laps around the block.

Basically I think any passenger weight based ticketing system that couldn't be justified purely on safety grounds wouldn't get past Australian anti discrimination law*. Thankfully.



*Note: seanpodge is a graduate of the Dr. Nick Riviera University-esque legal studies program and is therefore obliged to inform all that he is not actually a qualified lawyer.