6 ms·
I struggle to see the problem other than human vanity as to why passengers aren't weighed with their luggage. If you can accept that your bag costs the airline
by _coldfire 10y ago
I struggle to see the problem other than human vanity as to why passengers aren't weighed with their luggage.
If you can accept that your bag costs the airline more in fuel why not accept that your weight contributes also?
- aplummer 10y agoBecause I'm not overweight, just 6"7. Why should I pay more to fly for being born tall? Should black people pay more overall for being taller on average? It's not vanity it's equality...
- btbuildem 10y agoPerhaps we're going for equity, not equality..
- aplummer 10y agoI don't understand what that means in this context?
- benjiweber 10y agoThis cartoon is often used to illustrate the difference http://interactioninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/IISC_EqualityEquity.png http://interactioninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/I...
- marcoperaza 10y agoIt also costs more for you to feed yourself than it does a shorter person. Is that also unfair? As a very pale-skinned person, I have to spend more on sunscreen. Is that unfair?
- blhack 10y agoAirline tickets are sold per trip, not per-resource-used. If they were sold per-resource-used, heavier passengers would be able to offset this (negligible) cost by bringing less baggage, for instance.
- fennecfoxen 10y agoAll airlines charge for extra or overweight bags, to cover the cost of fuel and bag handling, both of which use resources. If they allow any free baggage at all, it is limited, and the baggage which is allowed for free is done so mostly to facilitate convenience in the transaction. (Heck, discount Euro airlines will charge you for anything over a small backpack.)
- blhack 10y agoWhat is your point? Baggage is sold on a partially resource-used basis. Airline tickets [currently] are not. There is talk about changing that, and people are discussing their feelings about that potential change. One obvious difference is that it's easy to choose to take less baggage, but I cannot simply choose to get a foot shorter. My girlfriend is a foot shorter than me, however, so in some ways my size is offset by hers! Almost like people are different and airlines have chosen to sell to the average instead of selling on a per-resource-used basis. If the average has changed, and they want to continue their current pricing model, then they need to adjust it to the new average. If they want to change their pricing model, which is what some people in this thread are discussing, then people are...going to discuss it, some people are going to disagree with the change.
- MrQuincle 10y agoThose Euro airlines also make you fit your suitcase through a frame with preset dimensions. To stop this conversation about width versus height, we will have to have frames on the airport through which you have to fit in case you want to pay for only one chair. Maybe those Japanese 1-person sleeping bunks would be an idea.
- plafl 10y agoAirlines don't charge you to cover any extra cost. They charge you just because they can. They will try at all costs to know how much are you willing to pay and offer you that price minus one cent. If they think you are on a business trip they will try to charge you more, if they think you are on an emergency they will charge you more, if they think you are without options they will ask for your soul. It's true that fuel cost is a huge part of airline costs but your extra weight is going to change that very little. What really costs airlines money is operating half empty aircrafts, something that sometimes they are forced to do. Ticket prices are determined by the market, and airlines markets are very special.
- cm2187 10y agoThis is a very slippery slope. Think health insurance.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- viraptor 10y agoHealth insurance is supposed to average the costs though. In many places we have crappy system where that's not really the case, but in general the whole business of insurance relies on the fact that more healthy or lucky people cover the expenses of the less healthy or lucky. If we asked people to really pay for resource usage, why would anyone go with insurance to begin with?
- wcummings 10y agoInsurers can legally discriminate against smokers, discriminating against people who drink 4 liters of cola everyday would at least be consistent.
- nradov 10y agoSome US health insurance plans already offer discounts to members who keep their BMI within the normal range.
- antisthenes 10y agoThis is a good slippery slope and the only problem is that we're not at the end of it yet. Why are healthy people forced to subsidize obesity? 99% of overweight issues are something that is under direct personal control, unlike cancer or genetic diseases.
- zeroer 10y agoYou should pay more because it costs more money to fly you. The airline doesn't care if you're overweight, only what your weight is.
- aplummer 10y agoIt costs more to fly a disabled person. Obviously that is wrong, but your overly simplified logic "You should pay more because it costs more money to fly you" obviously makes no sense.
- gragas 10y ago>your overly simplified logic "You should pay more because it costs more money to fly you" obviously makes no sense. No, that logic makes perfect sense. Firms can charge whatever they want. If you cost more to fly, then firms can charge you for that.
- fennecfoxen 10y agoIt costs a lot more to do a lot of things for disabled persons. To that end the US government passed the Americans with Disabilities Act, which dictated that most of those things should be done for the person at no additional cost to the person. Like most mandates, it acts a bit like a tax, in this case paid by the population at large, to benefit the disabled population. In the case of an airline, it's generally not a large expense - capex on a few airport wheelchairs and opex in the form of someone to assist in the physical transfer of the disabled person. The ADA is generally regarded as a generally good thing, especially insofar as it influences the design of new construction to be more accessible to begin with, but it's not without flaws (e.g. turning disabled persons into liability factories - http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/04/10/serial-ada-lawsuit-filer-striking-bay-area/ http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/04/10/serial-ada-lawsuit-fil... ). It's far less clear that we should levy a similar mandate on every business ever in order to mitigate every single difference in life circumstances. In the case here, it should be quite reasonable for airlines to charge people for a portion of their carriage by the kilogram, like they already charge people for extra leg room - it'd make tons of sense, and the only reason that they don't do it everywhere already is because a standardized price makes the transaction easier to accomplish.
- mehwoot 10y agoWhy should I pay more to fly for being born tall? Because it costs more to provide the service to you.
- chillacy 10y agoShould we charge more for people in wheelchairs, or the blind? After all it costs the airlines more to install accessible access.
- ptaipale 10y agoI tend to agree, even if I'm born tall. However, I'd like to point out that most of the time in sales of goods and services, the pricing is not directly connected to cost. It's very much connected to what people are prepared to pay. (A prime example is housing; where there is a housing shortage, the construction cost is much lower than the price at the point of sale).
- asdfasdfa11112 10y agoAren't flights priced based on value and supply and demand, not the direct cost of a providing the flight?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- DougBTX 10y agoYea, that's tricky. The simple way would be to treat all people equally, e.g. charge $1/kg for every passenger. But if weight correlates with race, even though each individual is treated equally, different races aren't being treated equally. Personally I'd rather discard the idea of race, what good has making those distinctions ever done?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- foepys 10y agoI'm a bit shocked about the responses to this comment. There is literally nothing you can do to become shorter and even though HN is very American I didn't expect this line to solidarity to be drawn this early. From my European (and maybe more solidarity-orientated) standpoint I can understand a surcharge for very obese passengers but not one for one just being born different than others.
- gragas 10y agoIt sucks but it's absolutely reasonable. It's shocking to me that you think firms shouldn't be allowed to charge more to cover greater costs.
- k-mcgrady 10y agoI think the idea is not that they shouldn't charge to cover their costs but that they should raise all prices and spread the cost out over all passengers. You shouldn't be punished for being born a certain way. If you choose to be a way that costs extra then it is reasonable to charge you extra but not if there's nothing you can do about it.
- Veratyr 10y agoI think either way punishes people for the way they're born. Making everyone pay the average cost means shorter people are paying more for fuel than they're costing. Heavier people are paying less than they're costing. So the shorter people are subsidising the larger people.
- k-mcgrady 10y agoTall people will spend more on food/pay for leg room upgrades. etc. My point being you could argue about this for ever. At the end of the day the decision is would you pay an extra couple of $ per flight so that everyone can afford to fly or would you rather save a few $ but a number of tall people can't afford the ticket now? And even for the ones who can do you feel like the result is just/fair? There's no right or wrong (unfortunately).
- briffle 10y agoI'm 6'6", and would be okay with this, if it meant my children would be charged much less than the regular rate, but somehow I don't think that fits the revenue models....
- noonespecial 10y agoI'm much shorter. Planes cost per pound to fly in the end. Why should I pay more to subsidise your flight just because of how I was born? Equality? Sounds like another blatant example of tall privilege to me.
- wtf_is_up 10y agoBringing skin color into the discussion did not help your argument.
- zodiac 10y agoThe airline discussed in the article are not weighing passengers in other to charge them a different amount, though
- dzhiurgis 10y agoFuel is weak argument. Vendover Productions recently did a video on youtube around costs around flying. IIRC the cost was less than 10%. That said I do not mind to be weighted as long as airline guarantees something in return for my height. I would be in favour for some government regulation that seats should be progressively sized from small to large. Some airlines from taller nations like Lufthansa and SAS have extra row of more legroom, but back support is still a problem and its not easy to get them.
- hueving 10y agoIt's not only about cost of the fuel, it's about putting the appropriate amount of fuel on the plane for the weight the plane needs to carry. Right now airlines have to overcompensate for potentially fat passengers and fly with extra fuel that costs efficiency and what could have been more cargo room.
- wallace_f 10y ago>Fuel is weak argument. Vendover Productions recently did a video on youtube around costs around flying. IIRC the cost was less than 10%. I found that hard to believe so I Google'd it. I came up with 35% You have fixed costs and variable costs. I would guess that is the reason for the discrepancy.
- dzhiurgis 10y agoAccording to that guy its even less than that: https://www.google.co.nz/amp/bgr.com/2016/05/16/why-is-flying-expensive/amp/?client=safari https://www.google.co.nz/amp/bgr.com/2016/05/16/why-is-flyin... 2.5$ for 70$ flight
- wallace_f 10y agoAccording to the Boston Globe it's 34% [1] According to that link its claim that a fully loaded A320 uses $2.50 worth of fuel from DC to NYC @ 105MPG. Solving for $, they're claiming jet fuel $ = 1.33/g That puts jet fuel at half the price of unleaded in many states, including California. I didn't believe that until I checked the price online and found it's currently @ $1.50. Didn't know jet fuel is cheaper than gas. One additional note - DC to NYC is a very short flight. Ratio of fuel cost to ticket price likely increases with flight distance. 1 - https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/11/17/fuel-prices-are-lower-why-aren-airline-tickets-cheaper/6IO8Hkcy4Norm71MzAvfaJ/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/11/17/fuel-prices-...
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- k-mcgrady 10y agoA big point people in the thread below this comment seem to be missing is that airlines aren't aiming to break even. A tall person on a flight isn't going to make that flight unprofitable. Prices are set based on what people are willing to pay, not the cost of flying them. It makes much more sense to raise prices across the board by a couple $ than waste time and money weighing every passenger you fly, dealing with people who lie about their weight when booking and trying to charge them extra at the airport. Not to mention there is probably a large section of the populace with an illness that effects their weight that would have to be ruled out of this anyway due to discrimination legislation.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- userbinator 10y agoSomeone I know whom I had talked to before about this issue put it quite succinctly: "the laws of physics don't care about equality or rights or discrimination or whatever else. If they say the plane isn't going to fly, it won't; and if you try to challenge them, you are going to lose."