Airline puts international passengers on the scales pre-flight Airline travellers are long familiar with having their luggage weighed before boarding a flight – but beginning this week until July 2, Air New Zealand will also be weighing passengers. To be specific, 10,000 international passengers on international flights. Air New Zealand called the effort a "survey" and explained it is …
I'm glad they're doing this, and to be quite honest I'd feel much safer on a plane knowing everyone's been weighed so they know exactly how heavy the plane is.
Just look at Air Midwest flight 5481. The plane was overloaded, and they were using average passenger weight from the 60's which was wildly out of date at the time the plane went down.
The FAA has updated their 'average' human weight too, and I recall Thompson Airways (or was that Thomas Cook or Tui) who made a significant mistake in their calculations a while back that had an effect on their plane.
That ANZ is doing this is good, particularly given that their flights are primarily over the Pacific, and knowing you have sufficient fuel on board is pretty imperative. :-)
Air Midwest flight 5481 was a much smaller aircraft where heavier than anticipated passenger girth can lead to very big problems. Some, maybe even many, commercial aircraft have load sensors to weigh the aircraft and others will use accel/deccel measurements but it would mean having to return to the stand if the plane appears overweight for the conditions.
It's not a bad idea to do a random weigh-in of people that are flying on a particular aircraft do keep up with estimates. I can see how a Samoan airline might not be able to stack as many seats in an aircraft as the passengers can be larger than those in someplace such as Scandinavia. On an international route the cross section of people on an A380 is more likely to average out on every flight.
A few years back, I took a flight from Perth to Learmonth, Australia. At the check-in counter, I was weighed, as was my carry-on - this was for the connecting helicopter flight to a drilling rig. Usullay it's done at the heliport, as they need to assign seats so that the aircraft is well balanced.
I have some sympathy with the idea of charging by weight: The Stoltman brothers are gonna cost a lot more than a couple of super-models!
But it has to be handled in a sensitive manner. The Stoltman brothers are probably less concerned about people knowing their weight than, say, someone with an eating disorder or body dysmorphic.
The only airline on the planet effectively charging by weight is Samoa Airways, and ultimately it's no-one else's business but the airline's what you weigh. Given this information is for ANZ's internal use (with no staff being able to see what an individual's weight is), the whole 'handled in a sensitive manner' argument is void :-)
There are *some* airlines (like Austrian) who will weigh your cabin baggage (and tag it as heavy if it's over their limit), but even that is not consistently done.
"and ultimately it's no-one else's business but the airline's what you weigh."
It can be a concern if you are getting on the plane with mostly full size Samoan guys. The maximum take-off and landing weights vary with weather conditions so you don't want to be on a plane that's close to maximums for a multi-segment trip and find out at a stop that the plane will be too heavy due to density altitude at that airport at the moment. Not only do airlines need up to date average figures, they need local figures too for the passengers they are most likely to have. Smaller aircraft should be weighing everything going onboard and passengers should expect that some seat swapping might be needed for balance.
I agree that it is a good safety measure. But making it voluntary is going to skew the results. Maybe it would be possible to add a weighing function to the security scan where you stand still in the round booth, while the scanner spins it should be enough time to get a half decent weight measure. No need to tell anyone, just collect the average over a day.
"Those backscatter scanners are pretty useless."
I don't fly anymore but when they brought in the new scanners, I opted out. Funny how they wouldn't allow any government or independent agency run any tests on them to see if they'd be a health issue over time. The manufacturers self-certified them as being "perfectly safe". I wonder if Douglas Adams got the story line from that to use in "Young Zaphod".
Full body scanners? I've been thropugh them in a few UK airports - they do only randomly pick people it seems generally. Once when i set the main one off, and the hand wand was beeping for no obvious reason I got checked through the big body one.
I was waiting for the sound of a Marigold - just in case,
Rather than using the security scanner (where you don't have your hand luggage on you) it would make more sense to do it at automated barriers into the security area.
You scan your boarding pass (which contains flight number and seat allocation) then go through the barrier - just stick scales under the pad you're standing on when you're scanning your boarding pass.
Capture the total weight of passenger and their hand luggage (which is typically going in the overhead bin above their seat, or under the seat in front) and that gives you more accurate figures for the actual weight in the cabin, and makes it less "personal".
Then if you want to further anonymise it, depending on the aircraft type you just aggregate the data over blocks of seats - a couple of rows and delineated by the aisles - and you end up with a series of point weights that would still give a much more accurate weight and balance sheet than the current assumption-based model, without explicitly identifying people.
Not too much of a problem if you are looking at the difference between the laden and unladen weights.
Otherwise the tower will know exactly what the windspeed and direction is at any time and the lift generated by the wings is also a known quantity, so again, not a problem.
Failing that the control surfaces can be adjusted to reduce lift when parked in windy conditions.
But then you would need the plane full of people and their luggage to know the weight of the plane, which you would then need to have that fuel loaded on to the plane. So you're then fueling the plane with people on board. Then what if the plane is overweight and people need to get off. It would cause a massive delay.
The wind over the wings, at take-off speed, is enough to lift a 500ton plane so a 1knot wind might provide 5tons of lift
I suppose with a windspeed measurement with 0.01knot resolution, and a perfect CFD model of the plane and all it's surroundings, and assuming perfectly laminar non-turbulent flow you could estimate the lift to the mass of a person
Height plays a big part in weight. If somebody is at the upper end of a healthy weight while being 6'6'', they'll weigh the same as somebody who is obese at 5'6''.
Beyond that, muscle is considerably heavier than fat by volume, so somebody who looks particularly svelte might be considerably heavier than they appear if they have a lot of muscle while not showing it.
""I think making weighing voluntary is the ethical thing to do here. As with anything related to the human body, consent is important," Boston-based therapist specializing in eating disorders, Molly Robson LCSW, told The Reg."
Firstly, it should be perfectly possible to weigh every passenger and still do it completely ethically. Have a scale just at the point the boarding passes are checked, so each passenger is weighed exactly once. All the machine needs to keep are a list of weights, there is no need (and indeed there should be no way) of associating a weight with a person or any other identifier. There is even no need for the machine to display the measured weight, just an LED that blinks to say that the machine is done with the measurement, next please. If it's completely voluntary, the people opting out wil be those more sensitive about their weight, which completely invalidates the results.
Secondly, while it's nice to include the point of view of a " therapist specializing in eating disorders", the number of people who are overweight, or indeed obese, because of eating disorders are a very small %age of overweight/obese people. In the vast majority of cases it is a choice* to prioritise food over exercise, junk food over healthy food etc. If someone has an eating disorder, my commiserations, and exceptions can be made. Otherwise, if a passenger doesn't fit in their allocated seat, why do they think it's OK to overflow into the next seat rather than pay for a second seat or pay extra for a wider seat?
*or a habit, which has become a habit because of the accumulation of many hundreds of small and innocuous-seeming choices
I'm convinced that the seats are narrower than they used to be. Certainly leg room has been reduced in cattle class over the last couple of decades.
I've not grown in height in the last 20 years but when I flew in the late 90's/early 00's I could fit in an economy seat without crushing my knees against the seat in front. A few years ago I had to fly again and I could barely sit down in an economy seat and I had to ask the person in front not to recline their seat. Thankfully it was a relatively short flight.
Legroom has changed for the worse in cattle class, absolutely.
But if anything, the seat width has generally been 17" - 18" for decades (although the armrests have slimmed down a lot). The 707 (and later the 737) was designed for 6-abreast, the DC-8 for 5-abreast configuration. The 747 was designed for 10 abreast and wider seats. The 777, with a wider fuselage than the 747, was designed for 10 abreast. The 787 has a narrower fuselage than the 777 and makes it 9 abreast. The 787 is, despite the wider seats compared to the 777, one of the most uncomfortable planes (despite the lower cabin altitude) on the planet.
The A380 sits square on either side of the 777 with its two decks. The main deck was designed for 10 abreast, the upper for 8. At least on the A380 you should have wider seats; that was its primary selling point! It's certainly a lot more comfortable in economy than either the 787 or the 777. The A350 is narrower than the 777 but wider than the 787.
In my opinion, the legroom (the seat pitch) is a much bigger indicator of comfort than width, but for those adults who have slightly gone to seed, having the arm rest dig into your waist certainly does irritate.
The possible issue here is that you, strictly speaking, do have to track where each person sits. Having all the obese one in the back and the heroin chic models in the front can wreak havoc with the centre of gravity. That means you track by seat number, which allows identification (has to actually, it's mandatory). Fully anonymous won't be possible then.
If the stated aim of the exercise is to benchmark an average for all passengers on all flights to get some sort of average, tracking by seat number isn't needed (although on further thought, if the benchmarks are for male, female, child passengers you would have to mark into which category the weighed person fits).
If the airline is doing it for weight distribution, then they would need to know the (approximate) weight before they allocate a seat.
"If the airline is doing it for weight distribution, then they would need to know the (approximate) weight before they allocate a seat."
About 40+ years ago , I was on a school trip to France. On the flight to London, the relatively small (BA Trident?) must have been weight sensitive. As we all boarded and went to the ticketed seats, the cabin staff came around and started moving us around. There was 30 or so of us kids, aged 12 to 18. I don't recall any issues with seating arrangements on the larger Tristar hop from London to Paris.
Trim-sensitive aircraft are more sensitive than I realised. One time I was on a short-haul internal flight which was far from full and I was asked to move seats by a few rows. Not a problem (and the cabin crew kindly gave me a complimentary bottle of wine for my trouble) but I was surprised that they picked on me because I'm only about 9.5 stone / low 60-odd kg
"Fully anonymous won't be possible then."
It would be ethical for the airlines to not couple passenger information with weight, but it doesn't matter. Weight would include any carry on baggage so it's not just the person's weight. They could just match weight and seat number for a calculation and keep that data separate and only include it with other flight data that doesn't include passenger information.
"ANZ doesn't fly to hot and high airports,"
I think it would be more accurate to say they don't 'schedule' flights to hot and high airports. The destination could change mid-flight due to issue with the aircraft or something like 9/11 happening again and a country's airspace closing and any aircraft that can divert will be directed to divert.
You don't have to track every single seat - anonymising to blocks of 9 or 10 seats would be more than sufficient, and would definitely still prevent issues like this one:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/03/qantas-flight-struggles-to-take-off-as-child-passengers-tip-balance
Yes it's voluntary. But passengers will also have it explained that no one will see the number in a way that can be tied to a person. To the point that when weighing the person the number will not be displayed to anyone present.
Between that and the context that this is for passenger safety. I would expect for most that will ally their fears.
Before boarding a flight from Boston to Marthas Vineyard, I was asked how much I weighed. That was in my younger days when I was quite fit and normal weight.
The reason was that they needed to distribute tthe weight evenly. The Marthas Vineyard airport had such a short runway that the flight was operated with a 1950's DC-3, so balancing the weight was important. Rumor has it that the local oligarks refused to extend the runway, because it worked very well with their private jets, and they preferred not to have too many tourists.
It is the oldest plane I have ever flown.
Discretely used to happen on Concord.
The baggage was then loaded accordingly to trim the plane.
A 1986 Epson EHT-10 (a touchscreen handheld) was used by the baggage handlers. (Bet you didn't know that such things were around then!)
Anon, as I'm not sure how discretely the measurement was taken, and I don't want to get anyone in trouble if it was not announced.
"I think making weighing voluntary is the ethical thing to do here."
No, it is not. You'll get just the light people weighing themselves, so they won't have an accurate idea of the plane's weight & balance.
As an Official Fat American Bastard[1], I think aviation safety trumps snowflake feelings.
Besides, they don't give a crap who is fat and who is thin, they're mostly interested in the lump (heh) sum.
1 (255lbs as I have only an 8-bit scale...)
This post has been deleted by its author
I was on an internal flight to Rhode Island, it was relatively empty but they'd filled the seats from the front.
Shortly before departure there was a request from the flight deck, "Can some passengers please move to the rear of the plane?"
If they're weighing solely for a study of average weights it can be truly anonymous, if they're weighing to check the individual plane loading it needs to use seat number and therefore data is identifiable.
I've seen quite a few articles recently where (very)plus-size folk (mostly from the "influencer community...whatever that is) have been very vocal about how airlines treat them unfairly - seats too small, not enough room, aisles too narrow, that sort of thing. The message seems to be that being plus-size they shouldn't be discriminated against, and in fact being that size should be normalised by society.
If that's the aim, then I can't see why they anyone should object to being weighed like this because (a) apparently weight is nothing to be ashamed about, (b) it will help airlines to understand that plus-size passengers are part of their customer base.
"(very)plus-size folk"
That is being kind. Now I'll admit that I'm a bit of a heaftychonk (my main issue with airline seats being that I'm also 6ft4) but I can still lower the tray table to horizontal and use the bog. One of those 'influencers' I saw moaning about seat sizes was so huge that her belly was touching the seat in front. (and she needed a nasal canula for supplementary oxygen.....)
Height is a struggle. I was 6'2" before a spinal injury robbed me of an inch. However, my legs are long (mostly in the thighs) and body short, so if I was totally in proportion to my thighs I would be around 6'7". Even in the Premium Economy I have to sit diagonally.
I have been moved twice - once when the person next to me complained on a trans-Atlantic flight that I was impinging on their space (as I was sitting diagonally).
And once when I was in the middle of 3 seats with a very plus size either side (in fact there was only a few inches between them that I had to squeeze into). I was the last on the plane in my suit and the stewardess escorted me to my seat saying that she would move me as soon as we were in the air. I received all sorts of abuse from the ladies as I zig-zagged into my seat and shoved the rolls of fat towards their own seats.
Both times I was moved to the bulkhead row, just behind First Class where there was plenty of room. Both times I was flying Economy due to company rules!
Anon as the world is now so woke that I could be in trouble for the above!
"my main issue with airline seats being that I'm also 6ft4"
For some time now, my shoulders have been 50-75mm wider than average seat widths. I haven't flown in years as it's a horrible way to travel and I expect after seeing what they call airline seats these days that I really won't fit being 6'1" and a full size male.
"airlines treat them unfairly - seats too small, not enough room, aisles too narrow, that sort of thing."
Nothing to do with fairness. I would love it if all the seats and row spacing were big enough for very plus-size folk, it would feel extremely comfortable for me. But if airlines were to make all the rows and all the seats to those specifications, they would need to take 1 row out and put the seats in 2+2, or 2+3 with an off-center aisle, or 2+3 with a central aisle and different-size seats on each side (rather than the current usual 3+3 for most short-haul flights). Any 2+3 configuration has issues with balance, and all options reduce capacity by 17%. Probably would need to reduce number of rows as well from around 30 to 26-27, reducing capacity by a further 10-13%. Approx 25% less passengers means at least 25% more costly tickets.
A better solution might be for airlines to have just a few rows with wider seats rather than the entire plane, and only charge higher prices for those rows. Oh wait, they do already!!
"(a) apparently weight is nothing to be ashamed about, (b) it will help airlines to understand that plus-size passengers are part of their customer base."
(a) Weight is absolutely nothing to be ashamed about. Equally, it should not be treated as a disability that requires special treatment, unless it really is a disability (ie there is a medical root cause). (b) Air New Zealand were weighing passengers exactly to better understand their customers. I'm sure any airline would want to find a way of appealing to plus-size passengers without losing profitability
Approx 25% less passengers means at least 25% more costly tickets.
No, it'd be worse than that.
For the sake of keeping the maths easy, let's say 100 seats at £100 each, meaning a full plane is worth £10,000 to the airline, Remove 25% capacity and you need to raise that £10,000 from just 75 seats, which would mean £133.33 per ticket - that's 33.3% more cost per ticket
Bees can fly a treat - When the "Bees can't fly" trope was first coined there was no slow motion photography so the assumption was that bees flew like birds with simple flapping and gliding.
A bee can glide about as well as a hamster but that's not a problem because (except when landing) they never glide, what they do is feather* their wings a lot more than birds so there's no drag from the upstroke and lots of lift on the downstroke.
* For that person - by "feather" I mean twist, not cover in fluffiness.
As someone who isn't chubby, but have some acquaintances who were definitely not built for speed and flood over the arm rests, I have no problem with them being 'analysed'
One of them could eat me for lunch, and normally books two seats so their 'average' is down.
On my last flight, someone of that build literally had to go in 'crab-wise' to get down the aisle, and in the bog at the back.
I was expecting them to need a shoehorn to assist.
In that respect, they should use something other than a plane.
For the cases where they are going to charge more by weight, do the big people get bigger seats? Because that would be fair and rather handy. As a tall person I already book (and pay extra for) the emergency row or extra leg room seats. In fact we already have that... business class... or first class.
Bigger seats in just economy would be fun.... every plane has 3 sizes of economy seats, lovingly arranged in family groups or sets of 4 facing each other like trains.
Potentially, but it would require paying quite a bit more, as charging by weight is usually discussed in terms of fuel burn (heavier payload requires more fuel to lift it the same amount). Adding bigger seats reduces the aircraft capacity, so you would also need to pay for the fuel that the person would have paid for sat next to you if the seat was narrower. In larger aircraft we call that business class.
makes sense to weigh person and luggage together. This is very fair, I've known a few petite humans that are capable of taking luggage that might weigh as much as they do. Of course that is one extreme case. I knew another small coworker that could pack for a week in a small carryon bag. Small shoes, small clothes, don't take up much volume. Me, I'm 6'2" and some planes just don't fit me.
Once flew to Albania for work and was on an airbus of some description.
Only about 40-50 passengers, the plane was at its weight limit.
The front few rows were filled and so were the rear few rows and only single window seats on the left hand side of the plane, someone wanted to move form the crowded front/back but was told this was not allowed because the plane was at its max carrying weight due to cargo and the seating arrangement was due to balance.
From gatwick it took most of the runway to get off the ground, landing in albania where the runway was short came in so low was skimming the fields for a minute then literally smacked into the tarmac just after the dirt and braked so hard I headbutted the seat in front and had to use my hands to push myself off the faceplant. Plane done a 180 at the other end with the wing actually over the dirt at the other end of the runway, was like doing a 180 at 20mph in a very large reliant robin!
As for passenger weight, I've seen a lot of videos from er....larger so called influencers bemoaning plane seat & aisle widths and saying that they should be given extra seats for free, to me, to be fair, should state your weight+baggage weight approx when booking tickets and pay the difference or refunded the difference at weigh ins at the airport - could be done discretely - only fair to charge per KG for travel, a bit like sending stuff via a parcel company!
Fun fact: The percentage of people fit to serve in the army in the Land of the Fat is less than 30% due to obesity, diabetes and other results from eating disorders.
At least they won't be needing bullet proof vests when Biden decides to dump them into Ukrainian trenches.
Then they can match height to DVT cases when your knees are shoved up against your chin for half the flight.
Not me personally as I've "only" a 32" inside leg, but I've had an ex with a 36" leg, yet weighed bugger all. A eight hour flight with cramped and angry woman is not pleasant for anyone.
"If I can get classified as freight "
In that case you might find yourself getting a bit chilly and out of breath, seeing that freight compartment is not warmed and unpressurised.
Better get classified as a pet, you can have your own box which is big enough to lie down in, and travel in the pressurised part of the hold.
I would preferentially book with an airline that charged extra for every kilo over 100 for combined human and baggage. However the cost per kilo would be an issue. One airline tried to charge me $20 for baggage 2kg over the limit (I discarded some of the contents instead). I was then seated next to someone much heavier than me whose excess flab overflowed the arm rest (and who had a personal hygiene issue).
Why is it that tall people seem to be OK with paying a bit extra for more legroom while some entitled obese think it's a human rights issue and the airlines need to make free provision to accommodate them? Especially as individuals can manage their weight but not their height.
I'd also welcome a policy seating those travelling with kids apart from those who appreciate less noise and interference.
I used to weigh 90 kg, I was offered the opportunity to take a glider flight. Weighing was essential and before I could fly they had to remove several kg of lead weights from the nose of the glider. No problem but it did incentivise me to go on a diet. I found that the simple strategy of eating less but better food worked. My doctor had also started to say I was "pre diabetic" which seems to be a polite term for fat, he's happier now too.
"Why is it that tall people seem to be OK with paying a bit extra for more legroom while some entitled obese think it's a human rights issue and the airlines need to make free provision to accommodate them? Especially as individuals can manage their weight but not their height."
Good question. Especially with the whole 'body positivity' and 'healthy at any weight' thing. Sadly I think it is the entitlement thing. "Its not my fault I stuff my face with lard!!!" Also having your knees crushed is seriously painful whereas inflicting your flab on others doesn't cause you much discomfort so from the individual perspective 'it isn't a problem'.
My shoulders are wider than the standard economy seat including both arm rests.
They offer free seatbelt extenders for fatties (I'm overweight but there is still significant slack in the normal seatbelt for me) but don't offer free extra leg room for tall people. Maybe they should charge extra if you can't get the normal seatbelt around your lard cos I have to pay 2-3x more for more leg room.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
