4 ms·

Make passengers with extra circumference and weight pay more.

wink 8y ago
I'm big and weigh more than average - and seat width has never been a problem. My problem is the length of my thighs. I can't really put them straight, they act as natural recline blockers. That's the nasty part - it's not about being comfortable, I have paid for extra leg room. I just demand that the damn planes be large enough to sit without pain. I don't demand comfort.
- close04 8y ago
  If you don't fit in the seat you'll most likely have to pay for an additional ticket anyway. Of course there are cases where the "big guy" just slightly overflows over the neighbors and in that case they're SOL. But tickets should be sold per sit per weight. And that should include the passenger and all the luggage. So a 50Kg person travelling with 5Kg of luggage shouldn't pay the same as a 150Kg person travelling with 40Kg of luggage. One should pay for 1 seat/55Kg, the other for 1-2 seats/190Kg. Airlines only care about the number of sits and total weight so the pricing should be done accordingly. And before anyone screams discrimination, I physically can't fit in most airplane seats (or can, but in a contortionist style not fit for more than a few minutes of usage). I have to pay for upgrades or extra leg room at every flight. I'm sure nobody thinks discrimination in my case. It's the same with leaning back the sit where it takes space from a seat you paid and it turns a usable seat into an unusable one. Which is why many times I prefer to fly low cost and pay for extra leg room then to go for "premium" airlines and have to be squashed in my seat because I risk being greeted by airport security after landing if I make a fuss. If you're tall and skinny you really draw the short straw of air travel. You still get to pay full price but without actually fitting in most places in the plane. Nobody feels any moral obligation to care and no chances of losing height in the gym.
  - rogerbinns 8y ago
    Your pay by weight pricing sounds fair, but in practise it would be pointless if fair. The vast majority of weight of a plane is not the passengers, and certainly not the variance of weight amongst the passengers. A 777-300ER is 170,000kg empty. Divide that equally by 350 passengers and you get 485kg per passenger. We'll compare a 75 vs 100kg passenger which brings the totals to 560 and 585kg. ie a 33% passenger weight increase only makes a 4% total weight change. Note that these are best case numbers and using real world ones is a heavier weight to allocate, and even more trivial weight change per passenger.
    - cascom 8y ago
      Except you’re forgetting about fuel. 350k kg max take off weight -170k Kg empty weight -145k kg max fuel = 35k kg usable weight @ max fuel 35k kg / 350 pax = 100kg/pax which means passenger weight is far from trivial
      - rogerbinns 8y ago
        I'm not forgetting about fuel, and gave the most optimistic numbers I could. Weight for premium passengers (eg bigger more complex seats, more floor space, bigger toilets, more galley space, equipment and food/drink) should be allocated to them, not shared evenly. I also don't think it is fair to allocate items like duty free carts, or what belly cargo is using. At the end of the day if you do a more realistic and fair allocation (~half the plane is not used by economy passengers), especially what people have control over (I didn't ask for duty free, dead heading crew, alcohol etc) then the weight differences between economy passengers still are not significant compared to the big picture.
        close04 8y ago
        Your example is not entirely appropriate because first you're comparing 2 classes of paying customers: the ones that paid a lot, and the ones that paid a little. Then you compare a service that's provided for all passengers equally, like the duty free. My point was being overweight is free, being "overheight" or an invalid will cost you every time. I have to pay a lot more to get the same level of (dis)comfort that everyone else gets for free. It's the kind of discrimination that people just let slide but it's discrimination nonetheless.
falcor84 8y ago
I understand that this is very problematic on several fronts, but it would follow quite naturally from the way that children seats cost less and (on lap) toddlers travel almost for free.

wink 8y ago

I'm big and weigh more than average - and seat width has never been a problem. My problem is the length of my thighs. I can't really put them straight, they act as natural recline blockers. That's the nasty part - it's not about being comfortable, I have paid for extra leg room. I just demand that the damn planes be large enough to sit without pain. I don't demand comfort.

close04 8y ago
If you don't fit in the seat you'll most likely have to pay for an additional ticket anyway. Of course there are cases where the "big guy" just slightly overflows over the neighbors and in that case they're SOL. But tickets should be sold per sit per weight. And that should include the passenger and all the luggage. So a 50Kg person travelling with 5Kg of luggage shouldn't pay the same as a 150Kg person travelling with 40Kg of luggage. One should pay for 1 seat/55Kg, the other for 1-2 seats/190Kg. Airlines only care about the number of sits and total weight so the pricing should be done accordingly. And before anyone screams discrimination, I physically can't fit in most airplane seats (or can, but in a contortionist style not fit for more than a few minutes of usage). I have to pay for upgrades or extra leg room at every flight. I'm sure nobody thinks discrimination in my case. It's the same with leaning back the sit where it takes space from a seat you paid and it turns a usable seat into an unusable one. Which is why many times I prefer to fly low cost and pay for extra leg room then to go for "premium" airlines and have to be squashed in my seat because I risk being greeted by airport security after landing if I make a fuss. If you're tall and skinny you really draw the short straw of air travel. You still get to pay full price but without actually fitting in most places in the plane. Nobody feels any moral obligation to care and no chances of losing height in the gym.
- rogerbinns 8y ago
  Your pay by weight pricing sounds fair, but in practise it would be pointless if fair. The vast majority of weight of a plane is not the passengers, and certainly not the variance of weight amongst the passengers. A 777-300ER is 170,000kg empty. Divide that equally by 350 passengers and you get 485kg per passenger. We'll compare a 75 vs 100kg passenger which brings the totals to 560 and 585kg. ie a 33% passenger weight increase only makes a 4% total weight change. Note that these are best case numbers and using real world ones is a heavier weight to allocate, and even more trivial weight change per passenger.
  - cascom 8y ago
    Except you’re forgetting about fuel. 350k kg max take off weight -170k Kg empty weight -145k kg max fuel = 35k kg usable weight @ max fuel 35k kg / 350 pax = 100kg/pax which means passenger weight is far from trivial
    - rogerbinns 8y ago
      I'm not forgetting about fuel, and gave the most optimistic numbers I could. Weight for premium passengers (eg bigger more complex seats, more floor space, bigger toilets, more galley space, equipment and food/drink) should be allocated to them, not shared evenly. I also don't think it is fair to allocate items like duty free carts, or what belly cargo is using. At the end of the day if you do a more realistic and fair allocation (~half the plane is not used by economy passengers), especially what people have control over (I didn't ask for duty free, dead heading crew, alcohol etc) then the weight differences between economy passengers still are not significant compared to the big picture.
      - close04 8y ago
        Your example is not entirely appropriate because first you're comparing 2 classes of paying customers: the ones that paid a lot, and the ones that paid a little. Then you compare a service that's provided for all passengers equally, like the duty free. My point was being overweight is free, being "overheight" or an invalid will cost you every time. I have to pay a lot more to get the same level of (dis)comfort that everyone else gets for free. It's the kind of discrimination that people just let slide but it's discrimination nonetheless.

falcor84 8y ago

I understand that this is very problematic on several fronts, but it would follow quite naturally from the way that children seats cost less and (on lap) toddlers travel almost for free.