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Korean Air is asking passengers to step on the scales before boarding
- RamblingCTO 3y agoI'm not sure what to think of that. I see the economics and think it's unfair that I subsidize unhealthy peoples. But then again there's society, empathy, and solidarity.
- Arnt 3y agoIt's temporary, to be done for a few weeks every five years. I assume the point is to keep the estimates in line with reality.
- RamblingCTO 3y agoSounds about right!
- thworp 3y agoYou're right. When your plane has to fly to an alternate airport due to weather and runs out fuel on the way, the last thing you want to feel is guilt over having indirectly fat-shamed your fellow passengers.
- RamblingCTO 3y agoWell, first of all: I'm European. So there aren't that many fat people on the planes that this would actually be a problem. Second: if there's a problem with enough fuel because of a bunch of fat people we have way bigger issues. Nice straw man tho. What I'm trying to say is: if we leave the path of averages, we start to measure everything that contributes to a price, what happens for things that can't be controlled? I don't feel like that's a good choice for a society.
- thworp 3y agoSorry if my reply was a bit snarky. I think we have a fundamental philosophical disagreement here. You think that human systems should follow human ideals first and only deviate when absolutely necessary. I think human systems should follow natural systems and only deviate when absolutely necessary. I think this keeps us grounded and enables the bottom-up growth and evolution of our civilization. As such I think it is entirely fair that the default is that prices for services should reflect the resources consumed for such a service. I agree there should be exceptions such as healthcare (up to a certain extent that's negotiated within each political unit) but air travel is definitely not one of them.
- RamblingCTO 3y agoDon't worry mate, all good! I see! I understand and it's not that I disagree completely, I'm just worried that losing compassion is way too easy in that case. That everything get's transactional. I've read too much cyberpunk to not be weary of that ;)
- jsbisviewtiful 3y ago[dead]
- senttoschool 3y agoSo it seems like this has all to do with safety, not fat shaming. In addition, they seem to only weigh once every 5 years. I'm all for it.
- Ekaros 3y agoWhere else could they get reasonable data of average passenger weight(including things like clothing). And distribution. Which affects things like fuel planning.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sBqQu3U0wH 3y ago"Fat shaming" is a ridiculous term and primarily taken seriously in USA, where being severely obese is considered normal and healthy.
- decremental 3y ago[dead]
- drewcoo 3y agoBusinesses opting to follow non-regulated, unenforced safety measures? Color me skeptical. This sounds more like a way to skimp on fuel costs.
- senttoschool 3y agoIf they save on fuel cost, they will pass the savings down to customers. And before you say they won't, they will. There's competition.
- tremorscript 3y agoThere is already a Larry David - Curb your enthusiasm episode on this one. I thought it was just Larry being Larry. But as the article suggests it was done only for a smaller planes not the large ones.
- fransje26 3y ago> “On commercial aircraft, anything from a 737 and above you know, 120 people, we have it built in.” No, you don't. Airplanes are designed using a 75kg baseline per passenger, including luggage. Now. Let's assume that the engineers felt very generous during their payload estimates, and added a 10% buffer (Spoiler alert: they don't). For a 737, with 170 passengers, that will be 1275kg. Taking the 2022 EASA passenger weight averages from the article, assuming a 50-50 male/female passenger distribution, we get an average passenger weight of 75kg, without luggage. Further assuming an average of 10kg of luggage per passenger, we are now 1700kg overweight, which is almost half a ton over the (generous!) maximum payload estimates. And whilst the Europeans are getting notably heavier in recent times, they are not, by any means the heaviest demographic group on earth. > Overall, a significant weight increase per passenger would be eclipsed by the weight of fuel, cargo and the aircraft itself, said Hilderman. “Fuel is 20 times more than the passenger weight,” he said. No, that's not how it works at all. The fuel weight, and the aircraft weight are what they are for one reason, and one reason only. It is the smallest amount of weight the engineers could get away with to safely and economically transport a certain amount of payload (170 pax) over a chosen distance. Increase that payload by 10%, and you will quickly find out that you need a significantly bigger plane (fuselage, wing, engines, landing gear), and a significantly larger amount of fuel to carry the new payload over the same distance. There are very real safety risks linked to carrying more payload than anticipated (or seriously unbalanced payload distributions) and being outraged about pseudo fat-shaming is not the right answer to this issue.
- pizzaknife 3y agoAlso would like to point out that the general US populace has rolled over for a belly rub at this point to a full body scan, why not toss a scale in the mix? its no more invasive than what we currently endure for security theater
- fransje26 3y agoPut the scale in the scanner, and you are 80% there. The only thing left to weigh is the cabin luggage.
- willcipriano 3y agoI wonder if you can't get close looking at body composition and size and making a guess. This is one of those things a AI can probably do well enough.
- ImPostingOnHN 3y agocarnival weight guessers are about to have a new Renaissance
- pizzaknife 3y agoThis gave me a good chuckle - thank you <3
- midasuni 3y agoDon’t the landing gear have sensors in them to measure how heavy the plane is?
- fransje26 3y agoNot really. They generally have sensors to determine that weight is applied to the landing gear. Some airplanes can determine load unbalance by comparing shock absorber deflections, but that system is in no way accurate enough to get accurate airplane weights.
- theshrike79 3y agoThe weight limits in planes are ridiculous anyway. There was just a story about a woman who couldn't get back from her 2 month vacation with her dog because the dog was 300 grams overweight as per the rules of the airline. Meanwhile my fat ass can trounce on the plane and nobody will care as long as I fit in the seat. My carry-on also weighs at least 2 times what the poor dog did. Nobody bats an eye. Either they need to waive the weight limits or use passenger+luggage as the weight limit. (Yes I know an anvil in the overhead is dangerous and that's why carry-ons have weight limits).
- chongli 3y agoThey can’t waive the weight limits. Planes have very narrow design parameters around weight. If you add more weight, you need to add more fuel. And then fuel itself weighs a lot, so the more fuel you bring, the more fuel you need to carry the weight of that fuel. Airlines don’t fill up the plane’s fuel tanks to the top like people do with their cars. That would greatly increase fuel costs due to the aforementioned reasons. So they try to calculate the exact amount of fuel they need for the trip and then add a safety margin. If the passengers and luggage are a lot heavier than expected it delays the flight because they need to add more fuel.
- theshrike79 3y agoYep, that's why I added the bit after "or". The only sustainable solution is to weigh passenger + carry on simultaneously and have some kind of limit for that. If you go over, you pay for an extra seat two, one of which stays empty because of plane safety.
- SpaghettiCthulu 3y agoUntil they overbook and don't realize because no one is going to complain that the extra seat isn't empty.
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- icegreentea2 3y agoI wonder how pissed Hilderman is right now over the editing of this piece and (presumably) the interview he gave? His quotes seem to be all over the place. How can he both say "it's not reasonable to weight passengers for the purposes of safety", but also say "periodic weight assessments can help airlines determine if weight estimates are still accurate", and then add in a non-sequitur about European privacy norms and then seat pitches??
- cafard 3y agoBack in the 1980s, a desk clerk at the Dubuque airport weighed my luggage and then asked me my weight before she assigned my seat on a flight to Chicago. When I saw the size of the airplane (20 seats or so), I was not surprised. But that was for trim, not for cumulative weight.
- precommunicator 3y agoIt's funny. I'm tall and fat, and I always buy two seats flying economy (and I'm completely fine with that). I weight more than 2 average passengers. Still, I believe when boarding they note down that one of my seats is "extra" and I believe this is for weight and balance reasons, i.e. they only count less than half of my weight (european low-end carrier).
- ballenf 3y agoThat's so that when the plane crashes they don't look for an extra non-existent corpse.
- sesuximo 3y agoOn small private planes this is already a requirement, and i think most ppl are quite happy to give their weight rather than take any risk of crashing
- Simulacra 3y agoFor general aviation, sure, but I think if a major airline tried this the lawyers would descend upon them. The average person would rather sue the airline and risk a crash, than suffer the indignity and humiliation of being weighed, or even having their weight considered. Not in this day of "fat acceptance" etc.
- peterdsharpe 3y agoWow, Hilderman's quore is just factually incorrect where he says: "Fuel is 20 times more than the passenger weight" For most transport aircraft, passenger mass fraction is roughly 12%-18% depending on what's included (cargo, seats, etc.), while fuel mass fraction is around 30% to 40%. So this ratio is more like 2 or 3, not 20. Passenger weight is absolutely a huge factor (speaking as an aerospace engineer focusing on vehicle design and flight performance).
- leros 3y agoKorean Air is the first airline where I had the experience of being forced to check a bag due to weight. I usually travel with a backpack and a carry on luggage, but Korea Air made me check the bag because the total weight for both bags exceeded a weight limit by 1KG.
- goodbyesf 3y agoInstead of individual passengers, why not weigh everything together - passenger + luggage + carry-on + etc? That way you don't have to embarrass some people.
- rizzaxc 3y agohow would you do that? once you board people on you can't kick them out; and who would you kick? the fattest ones? also, they need to rebalance with fuel if the plane is overweight. you can't do that with people on board. not to mention finding a scale able to handle a few tons...
- pan69 3y agoDoing this purely based on kg seems kinda discriminatory. I mean, if you just happen to be large but by no means overweight... Wouldn't BMI not be a more fairer way of measuring?