The author dilutes and weakens his argument by bringing up obesity. Whether a 80kg person is 40% fat or 10% fat doesn't matter; the central point is that a person who weighs more, consumes more, and thus ought to pay more. I wish he stuck more to that point instead of running off on the tangent about health and the environment.
Friends with whom I discuss this proposal often say that many obese people cannot help being overweight – they just have a different metabolism from the rest of us.
To expand on the author's take on why this argument is weak, take for example nearsighted people. Nearsightedness is partly hereditary; similar to obesity, it can be exacerbated by certain choices, but some people are just bound to be nearsighted. Nearsightedness means paying for glasses (at least the deductible) and often paying a huge premium for sunglasses. Simply put: life isn't fair, and people are already paying different expenses just because of conditions they were born with.
Tony Webber, a former chief economist for the Australian airline Qantas, has pointed out that, since 2000, the average weight of adult passengers on its planes has increased by two kilos. For a large, modern aircraft like the Airbus A380, that means that an extra $472 of fuel has to be burned on a flight from Sydney to London.
That said, is such an initiative necessary, cost-saving, or beneficial to the customer? An Airbus A380 holds about 600 passengers. That comes out to about $0.75 per passenger per 2 kilograms.
A pretty average American man weights about 85kg. A very light American man (bottom 5%) weighs about 65kg. A very heavy American man (top 5%) weighs about 115kg. (Pulling data from this chart). This means that the lightest 5% of men would pay about $7.50 less for a Sydney-London flight than average, and the heaviest 5% of men would pay about $11.75 more. On a shorter, domestic flight like Chicago-NYC, those figures work out to maybe a $5 difference in ticket price between a 65kg man and a 115kg man - and that's not even counting in the extra costs associated with spending time on weighing passengers!
So with that taken into account, I don't think that this is the best idea. Maybe extremely heavy people who are literally spilling over into the seat next to them should be forced to purchase two seats or upgrade to a roomier first class seat, because it's not fair for the poor guy sitting next to him. But the weight-to-fuel-price argument seems to not be strong enough. Maybe it'll be worth revisiting if fuel prices climb significantly.
"Maybe extremely heavy people who are literally spilling over into the seat next to them should be forced to purchase two seats or upgrade to a roomier first class seat, because it's not fair for the poor guy sitting next to him."
This! Every time I fly I'm nervous to see who I'll be sitting next to. I'm already cramped in my seat and I really don't need somebody else's fat (I don't mean to be rude here) taking my space. Not to mention invading my personal space. And then there's the matter of hygiene or lack there of. Airlines should really be doing what you are suggesting here.
Your point about arguing on weight is a good one, but what about the argument for seat size? Often the argument against obesity on planes is that they require some of their neighbour's seat, which the neighbour has paid for.
Weight of its 467 passengers ex luggage, assuming 80kg average: 37.3 metric tons.
That 442 tons has to move as a whole regardless of how lean your diet is. So when you're paying for your flight ticket, extremely little of it is about moving the meat in your body. After all the overheads (salaries, fees, whatnot), whatever's left of the ticket that's paying for jet fuel has less than 10% of it spent on shifting your meat.
Extra luggage is more work for the airline - handlers, check-in staff, tracking, lost baggage recovery. It also means much longer queues resulting in poorer service for everyone. Extra meat weight is a trivial amount of work for the airline to deal with - it moves itself around and consumes the same resources as the 'little people'.
There is a lot of evidence that obesity is not hereditary/predetermined, but is a choice (or a consequence of a weak mind/bad incentives).
I was in Vietnam 5 years ago. I didn't see any fat people. Look at photos/documentaries of Africa. No fat people.
To take it to the extreme, there were no fat people in Auschwitz. That is not to say that it was good in any way and that people should starve, but just that it is not impossible to be normal for anyone, you just have to try.
Does any additional cost to a company mean that it can treat its customers differently?
We must have a society where the equality of people is incontrovertible, and we make accommodations for the fact. That a thin small woman weighing 50Kg is worth the same as a muscular or fat person weighing 100kg.
To ask one to pay more for a service because of what they are is unequal treatment.
The people weighing less are charged more than they would be otherwise, so that everyone has the same price.
But their arbitrary birth characteristics that make them under the average weight should not entitle them to benefit in "proportion" nor equally should the characteristics of another cause them to be disadvantaged proportionally.
I would prefer a society where neither the state, nor private citizens, were able to reward birth-lottery success at the expense of birth-lottery failure.
And im not talking about genetics. Being muscular or fat, a result of a series of choices (no doubt), is still a result of birth lottery. So you had a single mum in a por community that fed you cheap fast food?
Do members disadvantaged communities (who are more overweight and unhealthy than the average) have their disadvantage compounded by being responsible for their parents and community?
This is a good point, but surely you will agree that we can only discuss where to draw the line, not whether it should be drawn or not?
As said in another post, life is not fair. If we take your point to the extreme, society should even out the disadvantages that come from having below-average intelligence.
The reason, generally, you are charged more for heavier luggage has got nothing to do with jet fuel consumption and everything to do with higher baggage handling fees. Since handlers don't actually have to carry obese people (that's a job for the person's legs), it makes complete sense to charge for heavier luggage rather than heavier people.
Baggage handlers are not paid by baggage weight, so that does not make much sense. Jet fuel consumption, on the other hand, is heavily impacted by airframe weight.
Paying by the kg, whether kg of flesh/fat or kg of luggage, wouldn't be absurd. The kg of fat might be a bit cheaper, though: you need luggage crew to haul luggage, but most haul themselves autonomously.
A reason to impose penalty on luggage weight is that it affects what people bring aboard: penalties might entice you to leave some luggage at home; they won't entice you to leave your rolls of fat on the ground.
But companies won't start selling airfares by the kg: for it to be workable, you'd need a clear pricing scheme, and that's not in their best interest.
More than that: the airlines charge what they think people will pay. There's no reason to suppose that heavier people are willing to pay more than lighter people are (beyond children being light and poor).
It's not the pricing scheme, it's the invasion of privacy that people will arc up about. Someone who is sensitive about their weight - and there are a lot of them - will be very difficult to manage in this situation.
Measuring people's weight would make the already humiliating experience at airports even worse for many people, especially for women. Imagine the humiliation a female (over even a male) passenger would experience when she's flagged at the airport as overweight in front of her friends, family or colleagues.
This is an incredibly bad idea and it would be a PR and commercial disaster for any airline or airport that would introduce such a scheme.
I can't wait for passenger rail to take off in the US. The weight of the passengers is virtually inconsequential - CSX has advertized that they can transport 1 ton of freight 436 miles on a single gallon of diesel fuel. Obviously people aren't freight, but even if it ends up being 10x that amount of passengers, that's still pennies for an increased cost if someone is overweight or obese.
I'm in the US and way overweight even by American standards, and I take the train everywhere. I'm in NYC and I can easily go to Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, DC, or even Toronto via Amtrak. Certainly takes longer than a plane, but the comfort is worth it for me. If only there were trains to Europe.
Yet, in terms of the airplane’s fuel consumption, it is all the same whether the extra weight is baggage or body fat.
... because as we all know, there is no cost whatsoever in handling large amounts of luggage. Which do you think would cost more: 100kg per person, with fat people who had little luggage, or 100kg per person, 50kg in person, and 50kg is excess luggage.
As a tall man, I hate this stupid point. I can't help the fact that I'm tall. I'm perhaps 10-15kg overweight, but if I go below 110kg, I am unhealthy. I already have to pay more to get a seat that doesn't screw me up - a seat that still doesn't fit me properly. Meanwhile Ms Slight Asian Woman is getting a much more comfortable seat. She's getting a better service for the same price.
The thing is, it's swings and roundabouts, and wanting to charge people a 'fat fee' is oversimplistic.
>As a tall man, I hate this stupid point. I can't help the fact that I'm tall. I'm perhaps 10-15kg overweight, but if I go below 110kg, I am unhealthy. I already have to pay more to get a seat that doesn't screw me up - a seat that still doesn't fit me properly. Meanwhile Ms Slight Asian Woman is getting a much more comfortable seat. She's getting a better service for the same price.
Well even you admit that you require a special seat and that "Ms Slight Asian Woman" gets comfortable in a normal seat - so there is a reason for the price difference. Anyway this sort of things are best left to market competition, if it's efficient to charge for baggage more than body weight then the companies or if the decision hurts their image they will figure it out.
Your point about luggage handling seems quite convincing.
But i wonder how tall you are for setting your healthy lower weight limit at 110kg. I am 175cm at 70kg and I am not skinny. So allowing an extra cm per kilo you would have to be 210cm. Which is entirely possible.
I do not think the actual different is much unless the person is really overweight or underweight. And because of so much additional investment in to infrastructure and training required, it is pretty stupid to actually implement the idea.
That said, it will be bad argument to say that it will punish the people for more weight, because at current price they are actually punishing underweighted and have them pay for the overweighted. ( poor fellas, they are underweighted and have to pay for it too. )
I don't think 75KG is a good standard weight. I mean, what about people who are muscular? I go to the gym and nobody I know would say I am obese (I am a little overweight) but because of muscles I'm around 109KG - I was 100KG and overweight, now I'm thinner and stronger but actually heavier.
So should people who are muscular be exempt? Do we do it based on height vs muscle or body fat percentage?
Unless we consider this, there's no way to do it fairly without punishing people for things either they can't control or would in other contexts be a good thing.
It's not about rewarding you for being healthy, it's about charging people for the resources (eg, jet fuel) which they consume. Whether your weight is from fat or muscles, you are costing the airline more than the 75kg person next to you.
I'm sure that can be discussed, focusing on this detracts from the article's main point.
> I mean, what about people who are muscular?
They're completely irrelevant, this is not about people being healthy versus not healthy, this is about weight being a direct driver of costs for airlines.
> So should people who are muscular be exempt?
No, why should they be>
> Do we do it based on height vs muscle or body fat percentage?
No, "we do it" based on weight.
> Unless we consider this, there's no way to do it fairly
How's it not fair to say "baseline of Xkg total (person + baggages), surcharge is Y/kg extra"?
Trying to understand how to factor in "fairness" here.
The fact is that irrespective of body content (ie fat or muscle), what counts for the economics of the airline is the total weight. Heavier the passengers and the luggage, more fuel is burnt, and the costs correspondingly go up.
I agree with you, however, that the 75 kg choice is pretty arbitrary. I wonder, though, if tickets online can be initially issued at price ex "weight-rate". Everyone would then stand with their luggage on the scales, and pay $k for every kilo (without any limit, per se). To me, that seems more "fair" without setting arbitrary limits that might carry discriminatory or racist overtones.
[+] [-] slimdizzy|14 years ago|reply
Friends with whom I discuss this proposal often say that many obese people cannot help being overweight – they just have a different metabolism from the rest of us.
To expand on the author's take on why this argument is weak, take for example nearsighted people. Nearsightedness is partly hereditary; similar to obesity, it can be exacerbated by certain choices, but some people are just bound to be nearsighted. Nearsightedness means paying for glasses (at least the deductible) and often paying a huge premium for sunglasses. Simply put: life isn't fair, and people are already paying different expenses just because of conditions they were born with.
Tony Webber, a former chief economist for the Australian airline Qantas, has pointed out that, since 2000, the average weight of adult passengers on its planes has increased by two kilos. For a large, modern aircraft like the Airbus A380, that means that an extra $472 of fuel has to be burned on a flight from Sydney to London.
That said, is such an initiative necessary, cost-saving, or beneficial to the customer? An Airbus A380 holds about 600 passengers. That comes out to about $0.75 per passenger per 2 kilograms.
A pretty average American man weights about 85kg. A very light American man (bottom 5%) weighs about 65kg. A very heavy American man (top 5%) weighs about 115kg. (Pulling data from this chart). This means that the lightest 5% of men would pay about $7.50 less for a Sydney-London flight than average, and the heaviest 5% of men would pay about $11.75 more. On a shorter, domestic flight like Chicago-NYC, those figures work out to maybe a $5 difference in ticket price between a 65kg man and a 115kg man - and that's not even counting in the extra costs associated with spending time on weighing passengers!
So with that taken into account, I don't think that this is the best idea. Maybe extremely heavy people who are literally spilling over into the seat next to them should be forced to purchase two seats or upgrade to a roomier first class seat, because it's not fair for the poor guy sitting next to him. But the weight-to-fuel-price argument seems to not be strong enough. Maybe it'll be worth revisiting if fuel prices climb significantly.
[+] [-] CWIZO|14 years ago|reply
This! Every time I fly I'm nervous to see who I'll be sitting next to. I'm already cramped in my seat and I really don't need somebody else's fat (I don't mean to be rude here) taking my space. Not to mention invading my personal space. And then there's the matter of hygiene or lack there of. Airlines should really be doing what you are suggesting here.
[+] [-] nodata|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vacri|14 years ago|reply
Weight of its 467 passengers ex luggage, assuming 80kg average: 37.3 metric tons.
That 442 tons has to move as a whole regardless of how lean your diet is. So when you're paying for your flight ticket, extremely little of it is about moving the meat in your body. After all the overheads (salaries, fees, whatnot), whatever's left of the ticket that's paying for jet fuel has less than 10% of it spent on shifting your meat.
Extra luggage is more work for the airline - handlers, check-in staff, tracking, lost baggage recovery. It also means much longer queues resulting in poorer service for everyone. Extra meat weight is a trivial amount of work for the airline to deal with - it moves itself around and consumes the same resources as the 'little people'.
[+] [-] tomp|14 years ago|reply
I was in Vietnam 5 years ago. I didn't see any fat people. Look at photos/documentaries of Africa. No fat people.
To take it to the extreme, there were no fat people in Auschwitz. That is not to say that it was good in any way and that people should starve, but just that it is not impossible to be normal for anyone, you just have to try.
[+] [-] mjburgess|14 years ago|reply
Does any additional cost to a company mean that it can treat its customers differently?
We must have a society where the equality of people is incontrovertible, and we make accommodations for the fact. That a thin small woman weighing 50Kg is worth the same as a muscular or fat person weighing 100kg.
To ask one to pay more for a service because of what they are is unequal treatment.
The people weighing less are charged more than they would be otherwise, so that everyone has the same price.
But their arbitrary birth characteristics that make them under the average weight should not entitle them to benefit in "proportion" nor equally should the characteristics of another cause them to be disadvantaged proportionally.
I would prefer a society where neither the state, nor private citizens, were able to reward birth-lottery success at the expense of birth-lottery failure.
And im not talking about genetics. Being muscular or fat, a result of a series of choices (no doubt), is still a result of birth lottery. So you had a single mum in a por community that fed you cheap fast food?
Do members disadvantaged communities (who are more overweight and unhealthy than the average) have their disadvantage compounded by being responsible for their parents and community?
[+] [-] kristiandupont|14 years ago|reply
As said in another post, life is not fair. If we take your point to the extreme, society should even out the disadvantages that come from having below-average intelligence.
[+] [-] vacri|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] VolatileVoid|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] masklinn|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fab13n|14 years ago|reply
A reason to impose penalty on luggage weight is that it affects what people bring aboard: penalties might entice you to leave some luggage at home; they won't entice you to leave your rolls of fat on the ground.
But companies won't start selling airfares by the kg: for it to be workable, you'd need a clear pricing scheme, and that's not in their best interest.
[+] [-] mooism2|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vacri|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DrJokepu|14 years ago|reply
This is an incredibly bad idea and it would be a PR and commercial disaster for any airline or airport that would introduce such a scheme.
[+] [-] kylec|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daeken|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shakesbeard|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vacri|14 years ago|reply
... because as we all know, there is no cost whatsoever in handling large amounts of luggage. Which do you think would cost more: 100kg per person, with fat people who had little luggage, or 100kg per person, 50kg in person, and 50kg is excess luggage.
As a tall man, I hate this stupid point. I can't help the fact that I'm tall. I'm perhaps 10-15kg overweight, but if I go below 110kg, I am unhealthy. I already have to pay more to get a seat that doesn't screw me up - a seat that still doesn't fit me properly. Meanwhile Ms Slight Asian Woman is getting a much more comfortable seat. She's getting a better service for the same price.
The thing is, it's swings and roundabouts, and wanting to charge people a 'fat fee' is oversimplistic.
[+] [-] moonchrome|14 years ago|reply
Well even you admit that you require a special seat and that "Ms Slight Asian Woman" gets comfortable in a normal seat - so there is a reason for the price difference. Anyway this sort of things are best left to market competition, if it's efficient to charge for baggage more than body weight then the companies or if the decision hurts their image they will figure it out.
[+] [-] nasmorn|14 years ago|reply
But i wonder how tall you are for setting your healthy lower weight limit at 110kg. I am 175cm at 70kg and I am not skinny. So allowing an extra cm per kilo you would have to be 210cm. Which is entirely possible.
[+] [-] zeeed|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vacri|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iamgopal|14 years ago|reply
That said, it will be bad argument to say that it will punish the people for more weight, because at current price they are actually punishing underweighted and have them pay for the overweighted. ( poor fellas, they are underweighted and have to pay for it too. )
[+] [-] antihero|14 years ago|reply
So should people who are muscular be exempt? Do we do it based on height vs muscle or body fat percentage?
Unless we consider this, there's no way to do it fairly without punishing people for things either they can't control or would in other contexts be a good thing.
[+] [-] bpodgursky|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] masklinn|14 years ago|reply
I'm sure that can be discussed, focusing on this detracts from the article's main point.
> I mean, what about people who are muscular?
They're completely irrelevant, this is not about people being healthy versus not healthy, this is about weight being a direct driver of costs for airlines.
> So should people who are muscular be exempt?
No, why should they be>
> Do we do it based on height vs muscle or body fat percentage?
No, "we do it" based on weight.
> Unless we consider this, there's no way to do it fairly
How's it not fair to say "baseline of Xkg total (person + baggages), surcharge is Y/kg extra"?
[+] [-] rahulrg|14 years ago|reply
The fact is that irrespective of body content (ie fat or muscle), what counts for the economics of the airline is the total weight. Heavier the passengers and the luggage, more fuel is burnt, and the costs correspondingly go up.
I agree with you, however, that the 75 kg choice is pretty arbitrary. I wonder, though, if tickets online can be initially issued at price ex "weight-rate". Everyone would then stand with their luggage on the scales, and pay $k for every kilo (without any limit, per se). To me, that seems more "fair" without setting arbitrary limits that might carry discriminatory or racist overtones.