7 ms·

Airline to charge overweight passengers more

21 points by suchabag 14y ago

quasque 14y ago
This seems unnecessarily discriminatory. It also means that taller people get a worse deal - already having to deal with cramped seating, now there is a premium on the extra body weight due to height.
- DoubleCluster 14y ago
  I'd think that with the extra money you're paying they could offer you more legroom. I'd have no trouble with paying more if I'm taking up more weight and space.
- smky80 14y ago
  You need to do the Sydney to Los Angeles 14 hour flight in economy with someone who weighs 350 lbs in the seat next to you, their body spilling over into your seat. If nothing else I think they should charge more by the horizontal area you take up.
- chrismorgan 14y ago
  Much the same thing happens with cars. Assuming the same car, a heavy person will find the car costs more to run than a light person. This sort of pricing model would simply be continuing doing that sort of passing the cost on to the customer. As it stands, small and light people are being discriminated against: they are subsidising the large heavy people. People just don't talk about it that way, normally.
  - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
    I don't think you understand what discriminate means.
    - gambiting 14y ago
      It would have been discriminatory if there was no reason to charge them for being obese other than the fact that they are obese. This is different - it literally costs the airline more to fly if you weight 50-60kg over the average. Your car uses more fuel as well, that's why he gave this example - roughly 0.5L/100km for every additional 50kg inside the car. It's not a discrimination thing, it's just technical fact that the airplane uses more fuel the more you put in it.
      - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
        You are conflating unfairness with discrimination, but they are unrelated concepts. E.g. you might want to discriminate between smokers and non smokers in assigning health insurance premiums. This would be fair, but it would still be discrimination. Not discriminating would be unfair in that smokers are more likely to have health problems.
        mpyne 14y ago
        I think you're correct, but I also think that the comments you were replying to were taking "discriminatory" in the sense that it was actually meant in the original comment, which complained of this being "unnecessarily discriminatory".
        seanmcdirmid 14y ago
        Word choice makes it very difficult to determine what the original comment means, which is why I brought it up.
- panacea 14y ago
  You're cargo on an airplane. I think it's fair for airlines to charge by weight. My reasoning blurs a bit though when it comes to height. I'm tall and skinny. I'd pay for extra leg room, but I don't cost the airline extra carbon burning and neighbouring passenger discomfort to get me somewhere. Ideally, we could computer model our desired seating arrangement and pay accordingly. If you don't want to pay for your waist-line, you don't travel.
  - chiph 14y ago
    Pay for the "Economy Plus" seats. They're like $20 more on Delta, and you get 2-3" more legroom. Totally worth it. But in general, airlines like tighter seat pitch as it lets them (perhaps) get another row into the cabin, and that's another 4-9 passengers per flight. Seatguru has a sortable grid of seat layout. I won't be on airberlin anytime soon (29" seat pitch, no way!) http://www.seatguru.com/charts/longhaul_economy.php http://www.seatguru.com/charts/longhaul_economy.php
    - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
      “Pay for the "Economy Plus" seats. They're like $20 more on Delta, and you get 2-3" more legroom.” I wanted to try that last December, traveling with Delta from AMS to TPA. Turns out, it was $120 more for each leg of the trip. So no, I chose not to, even though I'm 6'1". Instead, I got a seat at one of the emergency exits.
      - chiph 14y ago
        Ah, Amsterdam to Tampa -- that's why it was that much more. I'm surprised you could get an exit-row seat. They're usually snapped-up by their diamond-level frequent fliers.
        Samuel_Michon 14y ago
        Right, no doubt the prices you mentioned are valid, but for domestic flights. I mostly fly transatlantic with Delta, that's why the upgrade (and its associated costs) is not a no-brainer for me. Also, I only snagged the exit row seat for the return flight. I don't qualify for Diamond level with Delta, as I fly with several different airlines (non-Skyteam). With Delta, I do qualify for 50% discount on upgrades, I listed the fees that basic members would pay.
- madaxe 14y ago
  I find a fiery death due to a poorly trimmed light aircraft caused by the family of human blimps sat in the back row discriminatory. Weight distribution matters, particularly when you're in a single prop 8 seater. If some dude rocks up on the tarmac expecting to fly, but weighs as much as four other passengers combined, you'll have a hard time distributing that mass. Also, with light aircraft, your incremental fuel cost per pound of fat is that much more noticeable. For the record, I'm both a pilot and a, um, Rubenesque, fellow.
- ohwp 14y ago
  Excluding or rejecting people without arbitrary reason is called discrimination. Since weight is a big issue in fuel consumption I don't think you can call this discriminatory. But when you are charged extra because your weight is above X, it is discriminatory. So airlines should not charge extra but should charge by kilo-distance.
camus 14y ago
And if you're fat , do you get bigger seats ? lol ;) and when you make a reservation do you need to enter your weight ?
- jsmcgd 14y ago
  "Under the new system, Samoa Air passengers must type in their weight and the weight of their baggage into the online booking section of the airline's website. The rates vary depending on the distance flown: from $1 per kilogram on the airline's shortest domestic route to about $4.16 per kilogram for travel between Samoa and American Samoa. Passengers are then weighed again on scales at the airport, to check that they weren't fibbing online."
- Samuel_Michon 14y ago
  Believe it or not, Airbus is working on it. Regular people will get smaller seats than they do now, while fat people get wider seats. “Airbus recently said in a press release it will offer extra-wide seats on its A320 planes, "providing adequate space for those who need it, while giving airline operators a new method to generate additional revenue." Instead of having three 18-inch seats in a row, the new arrangement will have one 20-inch and two 17-inch seats.”
eksith 14y ago
For some reason Pulp Fiction popped into my head. I'm a little ambivalent about this. On one hand, obese people have enough of a hard time just getting by without the extra burden of social commentary and (let's face it) the "look at that guy" sentiment. On the other hand the airlines are having to spend more in fuel when prices are already high.
- Samuel_Michon 14y ago
  “obese people have enough of a hard time just getting by” Do they really? Especially in the US and UK, where obesity has really gotten out of hand, people don't even recognize it anymore. Only the super obese (BMI >45) get the “look at that guy” comments. In reality, obese is BMI >30. For instance, if you're 5'10" and you weigh 210 lbs, you're obese. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_of_obesity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_of_obesity
  - gambiting 14y ago
    It's a Samoan airline, and apparently over 90% of Samoans over the age of 15 are overweight. I wonder how is that possible?
    - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
      “ Reasons for [obesity being one of the leading causes of preventable deaths in the Pacific Rim] include mining operations that have left not much arable land; as a result, much of the local diet is of processed, imported food such as Spam or corned beef, rather than fresh fish, fruit and vegetables. In addition, cultural factors have been blamed, such as associating a large body size with wealth and power, or changing ways of living, with children leading more sedentary lives.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_Pacific http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_Pacific
      - gambiting 14y ago
        Wow, that's interesting. Cheers man.
casca 14y ago
This is a great marketing move as it tries something that many people who are charged $/£/€/?50+ for an overweight kilogram will have muttered at checkin desks. The truth is that it doesn't work because the bag restrictions are there for reasons unrelated to the weight of passengers. Firstly there's the baggage handlers. Some airports charge the airlines extra for heavier bags so it's a way to discourage a charge to the airline. But far more than that, even in the olden days before most airlines charged for checked baggage, it's a great way to extract additional revenue from the customers in a context of it being the customers' fault.
- rlpb 14y ago
  > The truth is that it doesn't work because the bag restrictions are there for reasons unrelated to the weight of passengers. The truth is that a big proportion of the cost of a flight is fuel, and therefore weight.
  - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
    Lets not forget the whole fuselage thingy.
- gambiting 14y ago
  There's that, but a plane will use a measurable amount of fuel more for each additional kilogram on board. It's not insignificant, too.
chrismorgan 14y ago
Such a pity that it's so close to April 1. Unfortunately I think it's just too sensible to be serious. I wish the poll had been made with a question of body mass adjacent; I expect the average weight of nay-sayers would be greater than that of aye-sayers.
nakedrobot2 14y ago
"Samoa Air passengers must type in their weight and the weight of their baggage into the online booking section of the airline's website." Uh, Ok, good luck with that :-)
- Samuel_Michon 14y ago
  “Passengers are then weighed again on scales at the airport, to check that they weren't fibbing online.”
  - dfxm12 14y ago
    Why bother asking when reserving at all then? How do people even know how much their bag is going to weigh before they pack? I don't even own a scale. I can estimate my own weight, but not the weight of a bag whose contents have yet to be determined.
rextex 14y ago
Please HN, I hear so many self righteous skinny people clammering over each other about what a great idea it is. Great, please invest in this airline then. That one that provides an unpleasant experience for obese people and is operating in one of the most obese countries in the world. I'm sure it will be super profitable and you can all use your dividends to not enjoy a sandwich together.

21 points by suchabag 14y ago

This seems unnecessarily discriminatory. It also means that taller people get a worse deal - already having to deal with cramped seating, now there is a premium on the extra body weight due to height.

DoubleCluster 14y ago
I'd think that with the extra money you're paying they could offer you more legroom. I'd have no trouble with paying more if I'm taking up more weight and space.
smky80 14y ago
You need to do the Sydney to Los Angeles 14 hour flight in economy with someone who weighs 350 lbs in the seat next to you, their body spilling over into your seat. If nothing else I think they should charge more by the horizontal area you take up.
chrismorgan 14y ago
Much the same thing happens with cars. Assuming the same car, a heavy person will find the car costs more to run than a light person. This sort of pricing model would simply be continuing doing that sort of passing the cost on to the customer. As it stands, small and light people are being discriminated against: they are subsidising the large heavy people. People just don't talk about it that way, normally.
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago
  I don't think you understand what discriminate means.
  - gambiting 14y ago
    It would have been discriminatory if there was no reason to charge them for being obese other than the fact that they are obese. This is different - it literally costs the airline more to fly if you weight 50-60kg over the average. Your car uses more fuel as well, that's why he gave this example - roughly 0.5L/100km for every additional 50kg inside the car. It's not a discrimination thing, it's just technical fact that the airplane uses more fuel the more you put in it.
    - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
      You are conflating unfairness with discrimination, but they are unrelated concepts. E.g. you might want to discriminate between smokers and non smokers in assigning health insurance premiums. This would be fair, but it would still be discrimination. Not discriminating would be unfair in that smokers are more likely to have health problems.
      - mpyne 14y ago
        I think you're correct, but I also think that the comments you were replying to were taking "discriminatory" in the sense that it was actually meant in the original comment, which complained of this being "unnecessarily discriminatory".
        seanmcdirmid 14y ago
        Word choice makes it very difficult to determine what the original comment means, which is why I brought it up.
panacea 14y ago
You're cargo on an airplane. I think it's fair for airlines to charge by weight. My reasoning blurs a bit though when it comes to height. I'm tall and skinny. I'd pay for extra leg room, but I don't cost the airline extra carbon burning and neighbouring passenger discomfort to get me somewhere. Ideally, we could computer model our desired seating arrangement and pay accordingly. If you don't want to pay for your waist-line, you don't travel.
- chiph 14y ago
  Pay for the "Economy Plus" seats. They're like $20 more on Delta, and you get 2-3" more legroom. Totally worth it. But in general, airlines like tighter seat pitch as it lets them (perhaps) get another row into the cabin, and that's another 4-9 passengers per flight. Seatguru has a sortable grid of seat layout. I won't be on airberlin anytime soon (29" seat pitch, no way!) http://www.seatguru.com/charts/longhaul_economy.php http://www.seatguru.com/charts/longhaul_economy.php
  - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
    “Pay for the "Economy Plus" seats. They're like $20 more on Delta, and you get 2-3" more legroom.” I wanted to try that last December, traveling with Delta from AMS to TPA. Turns out, it was $120 more for each leg of the trip. So no, I chose not to, even though I'm 6'1". Instead, I got a seat at one of the emergency exits.
    - chiph 14y ago
      Ah, Amsterdam to Tampa -- that's why it was that much more. I'm surprised you could get an exit-row seat. They're usually snapped-up by their diamond-level frequent fliers.
      - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
        Right, no doubt the prices you mentioned are valid, but for domestic flights. I mostly fly transatlantic with Delta, that's why the upgrade (and its associated costs) is not a no-brainer for me. Also, I only snagged the exit row seat for the return flight. I don't qualify for Diamond level with Delta, as I fly with several different airlines (non-Skyteam). With Delta, I do qualify for 50% discount on upgrades, I listed the fees that basic members would pay.
madaxe 14y ago
I find a fiery death due to a poorly trimmed light aircraft caused by the family of human blimps sat in the back row discriminatory. Weight distribution matters, particularly when you're in a single prop 8 seater. If some dude rocks up on the tarmac expecting to fly, but weighs as much as four other passengers combined, you'll have a hard time distributing that mass. Also, with light aircraft, your incremental fuel cost per pound of fat is that much more noticeable. For the record, I'm both a pilot and a, um, Rubenesque, fellow.
ohwp 14y ago
Excluding or rejecting people without arbitrary reason is called discrimination. Since weight is a big issue in fuel consumption I don't think you can call this discriminatory. But when you are charged extra because your weight is above X, it is discriminatory. So airlines should not charge extra but should charge by kilo-distance.

camus 14y ago

And if you're fat , do you get bigger seats ? lol ;) and when you make a reservation do you need to enter your weight ?

jsmcgd 14y ago
"Under the new system, Samoa Air passengers must type in their weight and the weight of their baggage into the online booking section of the airline's website. The rates vary depending on the distance flown: from $1 per kilogram on the airline's shortest domestic route to about $4.16 per kilogram for travel between Samoa and American Samoa. Passengers are then weighed again on scales at the airport, to check that they weren't fibbing online."
Samuel_Michon 14y ago
Believe it or not, Airbus is working on it. Regular people will get smaller seats than they do now, while fat people get wider seats. “Airbus recently said in a press release it will offer extra-wide seats on its A320 planes, "providing adequate space for those who need it, while giving airline operators a new method to generate additional revenue." Instead of having three 18-inch seats in a row, the new arrangement will have one 20-inch and two 17-inch seats.”

eksith 14y ago

For some reason Pulp Fiction popped into my head. I'm a little ambivalent about this. On one hand, obese people have enough of a hard time just getting by without the extra burden of social commentary and (let's face it) the "look at that guy" sentiment. On the other hand the airlines are having to spend more in fuel when prices are already high.

Samuel_Michon 14y ago
“obese people have enough of a hard time just getting by” Do they really? Especially in the US and UK, where obesity has really gotten out of hand, people don't even recognize it anymore. Only the super obese (BMI >45) get the “look at that guy” comments. In reality, obese is BMI >30. For instance, if you're 5'10" and you weigh 210 lbs, you're obese. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_of_obesity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_of_obesity
- gambiting 14y ago
  It's a Samoan airline, and apparently over 90% of Samoans over the age of 15 are overweight. I wonder how is that possible?
  - Samuel_Michon 14y ago
    “ Reasons for [obesity being one of the leading causes of preventable deaths in the Pacific Rim] include mining operations that have left not much arable land; as a result, much of the local diet is of processed, imported food such as Spam or corned beef, rather than fresh fish, fruit and vegetables. In addition, cultural factors have been blamed, such as associating a large body size with wealth and power, or changing ways of living, with children leading more sedentary lives.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_Pacific http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_Pacific
    - gambiting 14y ago
      Wow, that's interesting. Cheers man.

casca 14y ago

This is a great marketing move as it tries something that many people who are charged $/£/€/?50+ for an overweight kilogram will have muttered at checkin desks. The truth is that it doesn't work because the bag restrictions are there for reasons unrelated to the weight of passengers. Firstly there's the baggage handlers. Some airports charge the airlines extra for heavier bags so it's a way to discourage a charge to the airline. But far more than that, even in the olden days before most airlines charged for checked baggage, it's a great way to extract additional revenue from the customers in a context of it being the customers' fault.

rlpb 14y ago
> The truth is that it doesn't work because the bag restrictions are there for reasons unrelated to the weight of passengers. The truth is that a big proportion of the cost of a flight is fuel, and therefore weight.
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago
  Lets not forget the whole fuselage thingy.
gambiting 14y ago
There's that, but a plane will use a measurable amount of fuel more for each additional kilogram on board. It's not insignificant, too.

chrismorgan 14y ago

Such a pity that it's so close to April 1. Unfortunately I think it's just too sensible to be serious. I wish the poll had been made with a question of body mass adjacent; I expect the average weight of nay-sayers would be greater than that of aye-sayers.

nakedrobot2 14y ago

"Samoa Air passengers must type in their weight and the weight of their baggage into the online booking section of the airline's website." Uh, Ok, good luck with that :-)

Samuel_Michon 14y ago
“Passengers are then weighed again on scales at the airport, to check that they weren't fibbing online.”
- dfxm12 14y ago
  Why bother asking when reserving at all then? How do people even know how much their bag is going to weigh before they pack? I don't even own a scale. I can estimate my own weight, but not the weight of a bag whose contents have yet to be determined.

rextex 14y ago

Please HN, I hear so many self righteous skinny people clammering over each other about what a great idea it is. Great, please invest in this airline then. That one that provides an unpleasant experience for obese people and is operating in one of the most obese countries in the world. I'm sure it will be super profitable and you can all use your dividends to not enjoy a sandwich together.