Airline pricing structures

With the rise of obesity, some airlines are considering a change in pricing structure. Initially the idea is passengers over 75kg be charged an additional x per kilogram.

Obviously in the longer run, it would be a £ per kg basis, person plus luggage.

Is this discriminatory?

In my opinion, it's fair enough. Leave aside the requirement for the horizontally challenged to have two seats, but consider it this way.

Weight costs money to fly. That's why your airmail packages cost more if they're heavier, as we all know. Currently airlines use a nominative figure of around 75kg per passenger. Add 25 kg baggage and 10kg hand baggage/duty free and you've got 110kg per person allocated weight.

Now, my last international flight I had 17kg of hold baggage, 10kg of cabin baggage and I weigh 53kg, for a grand total of 80kg. A large, overweight person might weigh in at say 105kg, and have a full suitcase at 25kg and 10kg cabin baggage, for a total of 140kg. Thus, this person is costing almost twice as much money to fly.

Why should I pay the same amount to the airline when the costs are much lower? Isn't that discriminatory against me? Under the current system, everything averages out. This means that those passengers under allocated weight are subsidising those over allocated weight.

What are other people's views on a pay by weight basis of airline operation?

 

sounds like another government funded taxation exercise again to me.

can hear tony bLIAR now:-

" we've ran out of things/objects to revenue, lets put a tax on fat bastards"

A.N

 

You are wasting away mate, get some calories inside you!

 

I reckon "pay for what you weigh" is a nice idea in principle. However, I think it's very unlikely to happen just becuase it's almost impossible to implement. You buy your ticket for, say, £100 online then where do they weigh you? At the checkin desk? At the boarding gate? Do you then have to whip out your credit card at the gate to pay the extra? It would just be chaos, not to mention the arguments that would occur.

AFAIK Airlines in the US have just upped the nominal weight per passenger (without luggage) to 80kgs.

Michael.

 

A.N - this has nothing to do with government tax. It's simply a reflection of what it costs an airline being passed on to the customer in direct proportion.

An analogy to the current system is that everyone who goes into a petrol station pays the same amount, regardless of how much fuel their car uses.

Robbo - jealousy.

 

Yes

Stuart

 

I'm not keen on it, but then I'm a borderline fat bastard (15 stone and 7 pounds, 6 foot ish) so thats a given

 

Smudge - why any more so than the current system is discriminatory against lighter people?

 

The current system isn't discriminatory against anybody

Stuart

 

Except for, as I showed, the underweight subsidising the overweight. If you owned a little diesel hatchback that did 90mpg would you discriminated against if fuel was made 4.5 times more expensive for your car than it was for someone who drove a big V8 that did 20mpg? Because you're still paying the same per mile cost, despite the vast difference in resource usage, which isn't discriminatory as you've put it.

 

i know it isnt, but it sure sounds like one of the H.M.G's schemes!

dont think its fair tbh.

 

But that's the point. It is fair. It's like your electricity bill... you pay for what you use. How would it be fair if there was a flat rate for your electricity bill no matter how much power you used?

 

I do take what you say, but the cost of a flight is not only depended on fuel costs alone in fact with the huge subsidy on aviation fuel its probably not that great, there is no subsidy one way or the other it's a per knob basis, however as with all things it gets complicated quickly, I take a size 11 shoe.

Stuart

 

isaac, i think you'd increase fares even more - here's why. a lot of the population of the western world is overweight - or percieves themselves to be. as michael points out you'd have to weigh people at the airport, in public. now most of the women i know and a lot of blokes too would be embarassed about this. so they probably wouldn;t fly. this means that those who do fly would soon have their fares upped to replace the lost fairs from overweight people.
to be honest i think this may just be a ruse by the airlines to get more money out of joe public. with all the regulations and safety margins the fuel used by overweight people probably doesn;t figure in that much. some brainy bod at an airline co has spotted a news article about the western worlds obesity problem and had the brain fart to use this as an excuse to up fairs.
cheers


julian

 

What's fair; or rather what can someone get away with more to the point

Stuart

 

It's unlikely to happen for all sorts of reasons, I accept that. It's an interesting debating point though...

Airline fuel subsidies? Not enough to prevent BA from adding a fuel surcharge when oil prices are high. Each extra few kg requires more fuel which compounds the problem. In extremis, the plane may have to stop for additional fuel if it's on a long flight against the prevailing wind (as they often do on routes like LA-Melbourne anyway). Having to land, pay airport fees, additional fuel to take off and climb again, etc massively increases costs.

 

When you take into account that a jumbo jet weighs 162,386kg empty, the difference between you and and your 140 kg buddy suddenly drops rather a lot.

your tubby buddy plus plane is a mammoth 0.03% heavier than you and the plane are.

 

Ah, but if all 400 people on that jumbo jet are 25kg over then that's 10 tonnes, which on a long-haul flight would be easily enough to take it over MTOW.

 

and how often does this happen?

 

and how often does this happen?
Probably on 99% of US internal flights.

Bob