To think travellers should be weighed WITH their luggage when travelling.

[Bakergram]

I'm prepared for backlash.

I was charged excess for my hand luggage as it was over a certain weight- that's absolutely fine. The combined total weight for myself and my cabin baggage was approx 69 kg. My friend wasn't charged because their luggage wasn't overweight yet the combined total for them and their luggage was over 90kg. My friend joked about how unfair it was.

Surely it would be fairer to use the combined weigh of traveller and cabin luggage to determine and excess fees due?

It's not a value judgment, just a fact that people who bring more weight aboard, for whatever reason, cost more to transport. Why should lighter passengers subsidize that?

Would you happily pay part of the bill for the strangers at the nearby table in a restaurant?

I always assumed it was because of safe weights for the cases to be for baggage handlers....

OP If you are ever privileged to fly out of the Peruvian jungle on a military plane you may have your wish. Being weighted with luggage in front of other passengers was standard protocol. Your weight is called out and written down - fortunately my Spanish wasn't up to the translation 😂

sarcasm…

there are always exceptions. My 4 and a half foot cousin needs two seats at 69kg, while my 6 ft cousin (at the same weight) barely even takes up one. Then there are parents with babies who are the size of toddlers.

Adults should pay more than kids.
Men on average should pay more than women.
Young adults should pay more than the elderly.

Take all Luggage on separate charter flights which leave once a day so all the luggage goes at once for several planes of passengers and pack more people on to the plane.

Kids or women under 5'2" can go on mezzanine levels so twice as many shorties to each tall person.
Everyone upright rather than seated, but strapped in like some fairground rides.

I'm surprised Ryanair haven't thought of it to be honest.

YANBU but the offence police will burn you for implying being fat isn't either ideal or is a choice

Exactly. Whether it's inside leggings or luggage is irrelevant to the operation of the plane.

As a skinny person I would agree and I have made the same point in the past for the exact same reason, I'm about 52kg so with a 20kg limit I still don't weigh as much as many adults without their luggage. People who are really big do have to pay for 2 seats though which is only fair, maybe a discount for us skinny people would be good 😁?

Absolutely agree. Same happened to me
on a flight to Munich. I was a student, size six at most and paid something mad like £50 for 2kg over (around 20 years ago!). Most of the passengers on the flight were hugely overweight German men, big beer bellies that must have weighed more than me and my bag combined. Never flew with that airline again!

I think this is quite a silly idea imo - as PP have said, part of the baggage weight limits are due to safety (lifting / loading) etc and partly due to fuel. Partly also as a revenue stream!

I'm 6"1 and my DH is even taller - we're going to weigh more than the average couple in the 5"s. I can't help my height, which is linked to my weight. I think this is an idea that wouldn't work, I would have to pay more because I naturally weigh more than a 5"1 woman? It would be very very unpopular.

Besides you'd just end up with planes full of smug super skinny people with super cheap tickets (judging by some of the replies on this thread!) and the airline would end up making a loss 😂

First time I ever flew was from Wick to Orkney. Teeny weeny plane, and we were all weighed, but not with our bags - it was to balance the weight of the passengers across the plane I think.

Memory says it was an eight seater.

That's irrelevant. A kilo is a kilo. Do you think the plane cares if it's from pregnancy, gluttony or packing the entire contents of one's wardrobe?

That's a really silly comparison.

You choose what to eat in a restaurant.

You don't choose your weight, whatever a smug skinny person might like to think.

It's just ludicrous

The airline as a PP said will have an average weight per person so they have factored that in per seat. The on board luggage point is also valid they only have so much space / weight they can allocate to that. On average it balances out. One person's 12 stone or more balances out a.n. others 5 stone or whatever.

It does mean you are not directed to a seat because " we need to balance the weight" That could be another thread rather than "why would someone not change seats with me to sit with my family" .

Yes baggage allowances have gone down because ( I think and someone tell me if I am wrong & I think I am talking about baggage in the hold here ) people want cheaper air flights and so carriers will lower the baggage allowance to keep costs down.

As an aside - the reason I got a kindle . books weigh heavy whether in the hold or the cabin. Love kindle now.

It's annoying thought that everything is built for bigger and taller people. I struggle to reach the straps in the tube, aircraft overhead lockers and clothes rarely fit well. It would be nice if there were some perks for us short arses (cheap seats please!)

If you weigh 25% to 30% less than your friend. Smaller clothes presumably, how on earth was your luggage heavier than hers unless you packed far too much crap.

The content of your luggage is discretionary. The volume of another human is not.

Also depending on your friend's height, 90kg is not necessarily obese and probably not grossly so.

@BobinogBobbleHat - I have done that - in a tiny plane - I do get your point but I am talking about big commercial jets here - not tiny planes. I do remember having to suck a boiled sweet on a dan air - ( not compressurised ) plane once ) - shows my age :)

Without getting TL, DR,

We (when working) had a rule of thumb for calculating/cross checking increase in fuel burn vs. increase in aircraft weight - 4% of the delta for every hours flight….

For example a 10 kg increase in weight over a three hour flight would mean 1.2 kg of extra burn……

At todays fuel prices that’s boils down to probably barely
dollar difference between carrying a 65 kg adult verses a 75 kg adult from say London to Eastern Europe…would it be worth the admin hassle?

We went on a small inter island plane in the Pacific once - they weighed us, but not our luggage, in order to evenly place people on each side of the plane. My husband was carrying our toddler and they asked me to have her to even things up; we were each placed next to a considerably larger bodied islander. It seemed like a fine art of calculation and everyone seemed very relaxed about it.

Great idea. I have to pay full price for ds who is 5'4" and skinny as a racing snake. I'd definitely be better off.

Yes. But my goodness those bikini diets would be effective.

I’m 6’5”, and from my perspective everything is designed with you shrimps in mind. And I’ve spent too many hours bent up like a pretzel in standard class with my knees round my ears to have any sympathy for anyone because they can’t reach the luggage rack.
@Bakergram It’s not our fault you oompah loompahs didn’t eat your crusts when you were children. Bloody small people, you’ve done this to yourselves. Small, like cockroaches.

The baggage handles don’t touch cabin baggage.

And if that average were lower we'd burn less fuel & the flight would be cheaper to operate.

It's not the small, light packing passengers who are boosting the average.