5 ms·

How can this possibly be discriminatory against Samoans when the airline explicitly stated that seating arrangements were to properly distribute weight on the a

by gragas 10y ago

How can this possibly be discriminatory against Samoans when the airline explicitly stated that seating arrangements were to properly distribute weight on the aircrafts? 1. The airline's motives have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with race 2. The airline clearly explained its motives It's almost as if people actually don't understand what discrimination means.

gleenn 10y ago
I know a lot of people who would probably be too embarrassed to be weighed and wouldn't fly.
- gragas 10y ago
  Perhaps they should work on their weight then? If this new practice affects the airline's profits, it'll solve the problem or take the losses.
  - snoman 10y ago
    You don't need to be overweight to be embarrassed to be weighed. If only my anorexic friend had known sooner that she just needed to work on her weight, she could have avoided things like nickel-and-diming airlines. (not only so I think the distribution claim is bogus, but it's a precursor to billing by passenger weight)
    - gragas 10y ago
      It's not the duty of airlines to cater to every mental illness. Are you suggesting that they stop the whole show because one person with a relatively rare disease might be too embarrassed to use their service?
    - hawaiianbrah 10y ago
      Elsewhere in this thread it was mentioned a Samoan airline actually already does charge by passenger weight.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - paulmd 10y ago
        Yes: because Samoa Air's fleet aircraft are all Cessna 172s. You are essentially paying for a personal charter flight in a small aircraft, so there are no "averages" there. A single obese passenger can directly increase a flight's payload weight by +100% or more. Not the case with an airliner, where you are averaging across 75-600 people. In general aviation just because the seat is there doesn't mean you can take off with someone in it. As a rule of thumb, "one seat" is a 150 pound person, no luggage, and sometimes that's counting some of your fuel there too. A 2-seat aircraft like the Cessna 152 doesn't take off with full tanks with 2 average adult males onboard even without luggage (360 pounds full-fuel payload), and it's a struggle to get off the ground with 2 heavier adults even with reduced fuel. The C172 is a four-seater aircraft, 577 pounds full-fuel payload (note: less than 150 lbs per seat!). So with full fuel tanks you will get one pilot, one passenger, and either some luggage/cargo or a child passenger. Maybe a second adult passenger and no luggage if nobody is too heavy (above 175 lbs average). And an over-water flight in the Pacific is not the trip to take with a reduced fuel load. So you can see how the numbers work out here: the pilot plus one obese adult might literally be the entire payload for the flight. (Note: a 2003 study from the New Zealand Ministry of Health set their "average" male passenger weight at 187 lbs without carryon, or 207 lbs with carryon, and the average female passenger weight at 159 lbs without carryon or 169 pounds with. Further, they noted that average passenger weight was increasing at about 2 kg/6.6 lbs per decade.) source: https://www.caa.govt.nz/pubdocs/2003_pax_weight_survey.pdf https://www.caa.govt.nz/pubdocs/2003_pax_weight_survey.pdf
        vonuebelgarten 10y ago
        Very informative. I just took the liberty of converting your post to units I can read (sorry for the pathological imperialphobia :) ) > Yes: because Samoa Air's fleet aircraft are all Cessna 172s. You are essentially paying for a personal charter flight in a small aircraft, so there are no "averages" there. A single obese passenger can directly increase a flight's payload weight by +100% or more. Not the case with an airliner, where you are averaging across 75-600 people. > In general aviation just because the seat is there doesn't mean you can take off with someone in it. As a rule of thumb, "one seat" is a 68.03 kg person, no luggage, and sometimes that's counting some of your fuel there too. A 2-seat aircraft like the Cessna 152 doesn't take off with full tanks with 2 average adult males onboard even without luggage (163.29 kg full-fuel payload), and it's a struggle to get off the ground with 2 heavier adults even with reduced fuel. > The C172 is a four-seater aircraft, 261.7 kg full-fuel payload (note: less than 68.03 kg per seat!). So with full fuel tanks you will get one pilot, one passenger, and either some luggage/cargo or a child passenger. Maybe a second adult passenger and no luggage if nobody is too heavy (above 79.37 kg average). And an over-water flight in the Pacific is not the trip to take with a reduced fuel load. So you can see how the numbers work out here: the pilot plus one obese adult might literally be the entire payload for the flight. > (Note: a 2003 study from the New Zealand Ministry of Health set their "average" male passenger weight at 84.82 kg without carryon, or 93.89 kg with carryon, and the average female passenger weight at 72.12 kg without carryon or 76.65 kg with. Further, they noted that average passenger weight was increasing at about 2 kg/6.6 lbs per decade.) > source: https://www.caa.govt.nz/pubdocs/2003_pax_weight_survey.pdf https://www.caa.govt.nz/pubdocs/2003_pax_weight_survey.pdf
- kozak 10y ago
  Just weigh them together with their luggage, so that no one knows how much does the person without the luggage weighs?
  - rlanday 10y ago
    That doesn't necessarily solve the weight distribution problem if the luggage and the passenger are not positioned together on the airplane.
    - kozak 10y ago
      Still not a problem: weigh the person together with her carry-on luggage.
      - hawaiianbrah 10y ago
        Not a great solution. People that board later tend to place their carry ones farther from their seats because that's what's left.
- alkonaut 10y ago
  It could be done automatically/anonymously, or people could even be weighed in pairs. But for a small flight with 6 passengers (which is the case most important to get right) it's probably going to be a manual affair. That said - people might have all kinds of things they feel are embarrassing, such as removing their shoes which might be required in security. While I don't agree with TSA routines much - I still don't think we should care what people feel is embarrassing. Get over the embarrassment, fix your weight or avoid flying are 3 very real options.
  - test1235 10y ago
    Man, for 6 people, you could just look at them and seat them evenly in about two seconds flat.
    - alkonaut 10y ago
      Yes. I know from experience that's actually how it usually works. Anecdote: I flew a Cessna 6 seater in Venezuela and couldn't sit next to my wife, instead had to sit next to a 50kg sack of frozen chicken (the implication being that me and the chicken were the lightest, and my wife was heavier than the chicken sack by enough). I laughed and laughed. Pro tip: don't laugh.
- freyr 10y ago
  We already have somebody looking at our naked body as we walk through mm-wave scanners, and that hasn't deterred anybody. I don't think a discreet scale would be that big a deal. It's not like their weight needs to be displayed to everyone around them.
  - paulmd 10y ago
    If you wanted to be discreet/efficient about it, putting scales in the body scanners would be a great place to do it since you're already dealing with people one-by-one anyway. They could scan your ticket into the body scanner to identify/validate your ticket, and then it spits the weight back into the airline's computers for balance calculation.
- drusepth 10y ago
  I mean, at that point it's really their choice, right? It's not like the airline will broadcast their weight to other passengers. If you choose not to fly instead of letting the airline weigh you (like everyone else) for your safety, that's fine too.
rtpg 10y ago
I don't really get the airliner's reasoning. They say they're redistributing the weight, but if on this flight, most people are Samoan anyways, shouldn't the weight distribution be the same as other flights (since it's the same population)? It's a bit confusing.... You cannot talk about discrimination without also talking about disparate impact[0]: Policies which, while not being of discriminatory origins, end up disproportionately hitting a certain class of people. This happened a lot in housing policy. decades of racist housing and bank policymeans that blacks end up being "stuck" in low-income housing, even when black families in fact make a lot of money[1]. So now if you make any policy based around the land value of housing in many urban areas, this policy ends up disproportionately affecting blacks. Similarly, because of this, ghettos are formed, so any policy based on geography (school funding is a big one) also ends up disproportionately affecting blacks. You might think it's unfair to claim an action is discriminatory when the motives are not so. But the alternative is to not acknowledge who these policies actually affect. If the effects of an action are discriminatory, does it matter whether the motives were such? At least in the context of removing discrimination? [0]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact [1]: "on average, whites earning only $30,000 live in better neighborhoods than blacks earning $100,000" https://jdodgeblog.wordpress.com/2014/05/28/on-coates-and-neighborhood-disadvantage/ https://jdodgeblog.wordpress.com/2014/05/28/on-coates-and-ne...
- gragas 10y ago
  It is not and should not be the duty of anyone to mitigate disparate impact. It is, by definition, not the fault of the "accidentally discriminatory party".
  - rtpg 10y ago
    The Civil Rights Act outlines protected classes from discrimination. I don't really see the argument against the government taking action against disparate impact in such situations. After all, the point of the CRA is to remove discriminatory situations. Much like a firefighter trying to stop a fire, whether intent is there is beside the point. The objective is to fix the problem. Though I don't really know whether what's mentioned in the article is really a case warranting action. The harm applied here seems pretty minor (no assigned seating).
threatofrain 10y ago
Discrimination is differentiation. When you differentiate fruits in a market, you are a discriminating customer. Illegal employment discrimination is differentiation of employees on a protected category. Weight <can> have something to do with race, just like IQ tests can have something to do with race, in the lens that they are more likely to affect one racial population than another, and the hiring outcomes they produce may sustain or encourage a disproportionate racial distribution. So police stations have engaged in an affirmative argument that the use of IQ tests in employment candidacy is a bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ).

by gragas 10y ago

gleenn 10y ago

I know a lot of people who would probably be too embarrassed to be weighed and wouldn't fly.

gragas 10y ago
Perhaps they should work on their weight then? If this new practice affects the airline's profits, it'll solve the problem or take the losses.
- snoman 10y ago
  You don't need to be overweight to be embarrassed to be weighed. If only my anorexic friend had known sooner that she just needed to work on her weight, she could have avoided things like nickel-and-diming airlines. (not only so I think the distribution claim is bogus, but it's a precursor to billing by passenger weight)
  - gragas 10y ago
    It's not the duty of airlines to cater to every mental illness. Are you suggesting that they stop the whole show because one person with a relatively rare disease might be too embarrassed to use their service?
  - hawaiianbrah 10y ago
    Elsewhere in this thread it was mentioned a Samoan airline actually already does charge by passenger weight.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - paulmd 10y ago
      Yes: because Samoa Air's fleet aircraft are all Cessna 172s. You are essentially paying for a personal charter flight in a small aircraft, so there are no "averages" there. A single obese passenger can directly increase a flight's payload weight by +100% or more. Not the case with an airliner, where you are averaging across 75-600 people. In general aviation just because the seat is there doesn't mean you can take off with someone in it. As a rule of thumb, "one seat" is a 150 pound person, no luggage, and sometimes that's counting some of your fuel there too. A 2-seat aircraft like the Cessna 152 doesn't take off with full tanks with 2 average adult males onboard even without luggage (360 pounds full-fuel payload), and it's a struggle to get off the ground with 2 heavier adults even with reduced fuel. The C172 is a four-seater aircraft, 577 pounds full-fuel payload (note: less than 150 lbs per seat!). So with full fuel tanks you will get one pilot, one passenger, and either some luggage/cargo or a child passenger. Maybe a second adult passenger and no luggage if nobody is too heavy (above 175 lbs average). And an over-water flight in the Pacific is not the trip to take with a reduced fuel load. So you can see how the numbers work out here: the pilot plus one obese adult might literally be the entire payload for the flight. (Note: a 2003 study from the New Zealand Ministry of Health set their "average" male passenger weight at 187 lbs without carryon, or 207 lbs with carryon, and the average female passenger weight at 159 lbs without carryon or 169 pounds with. Further, they noted that average passenger weight was increasing at about 2 kg/6.6 lbs per decade.) source: https://www.caa.govt.nz/pubdocs/2003_pax_weight_survey.pdf https://www.caa.govt.nz/pubdocs/2003_pax_weight_survey.pdf
      - vonuebelgarten 10y ago
        Very informative. I just took the liberty of converting your post to units I can read (sorry for the pathological imperialphobia :) ) > Yes: because Samoa Air's fleet aircraft are all Cessna 172s. You are essentially paying for a personal charter flight in a small aircraft, so there are no "averages" there. A single obese passenger can directly increase a flight's payload weight by +100% or more. Not the case with an airliner, where you are averaging across 75-600 people. > In general aviation just because the seat is there doesn't mean you can take off with someone in it. As a rule of thumb, "one seat" is a 68.03 kg person, no luggage, and sometimes that's counting some of your fuel there too. A 2-seat aircraft like the Cessna 152 doesn't take off with full tanks with 2 average adult males onboard even without luggage (163.29 kg full-fuel payload), and it's a struggle to get off the ground with 2 heavier adults even with reduced fuel. > The C172 is a four-seater aircraft, 261.7 kg full-fuel payload (note: less than 68.03 kg per seat!). So with full fuel tanks you will get one pilot, one passenger, and either some luggage/cargo or a child passenger. Maybe a second adult passenger and no luggage if nobody is too heavy (above 79.37 kg average). And an over-water flight in the Pacific is not the trip to take with a reduced fuel load. So you can see how the numbers work out here: the pilot plus one obese adult might literally be the entire payload for the flight. > (Note: a 2003 study from the New Zealand Ministry of Health set their "average" male passenger weight at 84.82 kg without carryon, or 93.89 kg with carryon, and the average female passenger weight at 72.12 kg without carryon or 76.65 kg with. Further, they noted that average passenger weight was increasing at about 2 kg/6.6 lbs per decade.) > source: https://www.caa.govt.nz/pubdocs/2003_pax_weight_survey.pdf https://www.caa.govt.nz/pubdocs/2003_pax_weight_survey.pdf
kozak 10y ago
Just weigh them together with their luggage, so that no one knows how much does the person without the luggage weighs?
- rlanday 10y ago
  That doesn't necessarily solve the weight distribution problem if the luggage and the passenger are not positioned together on the airplane.
  - kozak 10y ago
    Still not a problem: weigh the person together with her carry-on luggage.
    - hawaiianbrah 10y ago
      Not a great solution. People that board later tend to place their carry ones farther from their seats because that's what's left.
alkonaut 10y ago
It could be done automatically/anonymously, or people could even be weighed in pairs. But for a small flight with 6 passengers (which is the case most important to get right) it's probably going to be a manual affair. That said - people might have all kinds of things they feel are embarrassing, such as removing their shoes which might be required in security. While I don't agree with TSA routines much - I still don't think we should care what people feel is embarrassing. Get over the embarrassment, fix your weight or avoid flying are 3 very real options.
- test1235 10y ago
  Man, for 6 people, you could just look at them and seat them evenly in about two seconds flat.
  - alkonaut 10y ago
    Yes. I know from experience that's actually how it usually works. Anecdote: I flew a Cessna 6 seater in Venezuela and couldn't sit next to my wife, instead had to sit next to a 50kg sack of frozen chicken (the implication being that me and the chicken were the lightest, and my wife was heavier than the chicken sack by enough). I laughed and laughed. Pro tip: don't laugh.
freyr 10y ago
We already have somebody looking at our naked body as we walk through mm-wave scanners, and that hasn't deterred anybody. I don't think a discreet scale would be that big a deal. It's not like their weight needs to be displayed to everyone around them.
- paulmd 10y ago
  If you wanted to be discreet/efficient about it, putting scales in the body scanners would be a great place to do it since you're already dealing with people one-by-one anyway. They could scan your ticket into the body scanner to identify/validate your ticket, and then it spits the weight back into the airline's computers for balance calculation.
drusepth 10y ago
I mean, at that point it's really their choice, right? It's not like the airline will broadcast their weight to other passengers. If you choose not to fly instead of letting the airline weigh you (like everyone else) for your safety, that's fine too.

rtpg 10y ago

I don't really get the airliner's reasoning. They say they're redistributing the weight, but if on this flight, most people are Samoan anyways, shouldn't the weight distribution be the same as other flights (since it's the same population)? It's a bit confusing.... You cannot talk about discrimination without also talking about disparate impact[0]: Policies which, while not being of discriminatory origins, end up disproportionately hitting a certain class of people. This happened a lot in housing policy. decades of racist housing and bank policymeans that blacks end up being "stuck" in low-income housing, even when black families in fact make a lot of money[1]. So now if you make any policy based around the land value of housing in many urban areas, this policy ends up disproportionately affecting blacks. Similarly, because of this, ghettos are formed, so any policy based on geography (school funding is a big one) also ends up disproportionately affecting blacks. You might think it's unfair to claim an action is discriminatory when the motives are not so. But the alternative is to not acknowledge who these policies actually affect. If the effects of an action are discriminatory, does it matter whether the motives were such? At least in the context of removing discrimination? [0]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact [1]: "on average, whites earning only $30,000 live in better neighborhoods than blacks earning $100,000" https://jdodgeblog.wordpress.com/2014/05/28/on-coates-and-neighborhood-disadvantage/ https://jdodgeblog.wordpress.com/2014/05/28/on-coates-and-ne...

gragas 10y ago
It is not and should not be the duty of anyone to mitigate disparate impact. It is, by definition, not the fault of the "accidentally discriminatory party".
- rtpg 10y ago
  The Civil Rights Act outlines protected classes from discrimination. I don't really see the argument against the government taking action against disparate impact in such situations. After all, the point of the CRA is to remove discriminatory situations. Much like a firefighter trying to stop a fire, whether intent is there is beside the point. The objective is to fix the problem. Though I don't really know whether what's mentioned in the article is really a case warranting action. The harm applied here seems pretty minor (no assigned seating).

threatofrain 10y ago

Discrimination is differentiation. When you differentiate fruits in a market, you are a discriminating customer. Illegal employment discrimination is differentiation of employees on a protected category. Weight <can> have something to do with race, just like IQ tests can have something to do with race, in the lens that they are more likely to affect one racial population than another, and the hiring outcomes they produce may sustain or encourage a disproportionate racial distribution. So police stations have engaged in an affirmative argument that the use of IQ tests in employment candidacy is a bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ).