Airlines to charge passengers by weight?

I don't have a problem with this, and I am above average in weight. (FAA weight, not for my height) They charge by weight for cargo, as do trucklines, etc... What's the issue. More weight = more fuel cost.
 
Only issue to me is, how can you buy a ticket without going in person to some specially calibrated scale (FAA regulated?)? Their pricing structure is already the wost nightmare in the history of retail. I can see "Buy ticket within one week of departure at $3.47/pound. Stay overnight at least one Saturday, pay $4.42/pound."
 
JohnR said:
Only issue to me is, how can you buy a ticket without going in person to some specially calibrated scale (FAA regulated?)? Their pricing structure is already the wost nightmare in the history of retail. I can see "Buy ticket within one week of departure at $3.47/pound. Stay overnight at least one Saturday, pay $4.42/pound."
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I feel like a bag of apples.

Personally, I do not like to be thought of as cargo. Eventually they'll start charging us for seats. They cost weight and money too. After all, cargo isn't given any.
 
They should also institute a "stink" surcharge for the fatties that spill over into other people's seats.
 
Are they going to be assigning seat types and leg room area based upon weight? If so, I'll pay whatever it takes. But something tells me that regardless of weight, we will all still be stuck on the one-size-fits-very-very-few seats we have been condemned to use.

I'll bet not.
 
They gotta figure out a way to do this without being sued for discrimination against People Of Size. Solely weight-based may be problematic, and it would even further destroy the already-broken revenue model.

OTOH, they can easily influence the revenue by offering Krispy Kremes for sale on board. Get revenues both ways....
 
hey... if i'm paying more based on size, i'm gonna want a seat that reflects the same!
 
After spending 4.5 hours on a SWA flight from PHX to BWI next to a large woman, I'd be happy to pay extra for seats where I can choose my neighbors. I had the window seat and another skinny guy had the aisle...and neither one of us had a comfortable flight.

To top it off, she ate crap for most of the flight.
 
Law of unintended consequences anyone? How long until the FAA figures out that if you can weigh one person, you can weigh them all and forces the airlines in to doing actual W&B's instead of the 170(180?) lb average that they are allowed to use currently?

How would you like to have one of the last ten boarding passes issued?

Eggman
 
Is it going to be the honor system for declaring your weight when you buy a ticket online??:dunno:

I can see it now. Buy a ticket online months in advance, and then have to pay an extra fee if you gain weight in the months before the actual flight. Lord knows they wouldn't refund some of that if you lost weight!
 
ausrere said:
Is it going to be the honor system for declaring your weight when you buy a ticket online??:dunno:
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for our 135, we take the persons declared weight and add 10. ive heard of other opspecs that add 10%, or 10 lbs for people under 200 and 20 lbs for people over 200.
 
For one of my lifeline flights, I needed to add about 40% to the two female pax I had. They said like 140. Uh no, they were both pushing 2 bills. I guarantee you are not going to get an honest answer from 98% of the women passengers booking.
 
Brian Austin said:
After spending 4.5 hours on a SWA flight from PHX to BWI next to a large woman, I'd be happy to pay extra for seats where I can choose my neighbors. I had the window seat and another skinny guy had the aisle...and neither one of us had a comfortable flight.

To top it off, she ate crap for most of the flight.
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Southwest is the ONLY airline on which you can choose your neighbor...
 
SCCutler said:
Southwest is the ONLY airline on which you can choose your neighbor...
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One of the last seats left on a full flight and you're going to say "uh, no, you weigh too much, please find another seat"?

You can choose who YOU sit next to but not who sits down after you. ;)
 
James_Dean said:
Law of unintended consequences anyone? How long until the FAA figures out that if you can weigh one person, you can weigh them all and forces the airlines in to doing actual W&B's instead of the 170(180?) lb average that they are allowed to use currently?

How would you like to have one of the last ten boarding passes issued?

Eggman
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If memory serves (this is Captain's crap to remember) we use 184 in the summer and 187 in the winter for adults, and half that for kids (infant - 13); though the numbers can be massaged "at captains discression" if it looks like someone really doesn't fit the standard weights (like the lady we had who needed TWO seatbelt extenders).

I can't imagine they'll actually make us do w&b with true weights...it would take f-ing forever, and no one could move around. It would be annoying in a 19 seater, downright impossible in anything mainline flies!
 
Google has a similar stash of "secret projects" that are hilarious to read.
 
I Just got this in a Email. And it fits here.

Dave G:blueplane:
 

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It's about time.

Every pound carried costs fuel.

If we could now just get ATC to meld flexible altititude assignments with custom courses, we might actually start saving what's left of our dead dinosaurs.

Imagine taking off from JFK for SFO, your rate of climb advised by ATC to mesh with other aircraft. Once clear of local traffic, you set your autothrottle/autopilot for "optimum cruise". You gradually gain altitude 'til top of climb then idle back to bring you to the approach gate having used every drop of fuel as efficiently as possible.

It's no longer a dream, it's an imperative.

The captain would then only need to instruct the first officer to push a button. That would allow the captain to get as much sleep as possible which is necessary for the safety of the aircraft and its crew. The first officer could also get caught up on reading magazines, doing crosswords and solving sodoku puzzles.
 
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James_Dean said:
How would you like to have one of the last ten boarding passes issued?
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If it keeps me from crashing, I'm all for it. Then again, I'm a weirdo - Unlike the general population I'm not so determined to get anywhere at any given moment that I'm totally willing to die for it.


Hmmm... Has the FAA actualy conducted a series of random W/B experiment on a heavily loaded pressurized tube cattle car? Load it for the flight, rubber stamp the W/B then just before the plane gets to the runway without warning, pull all the cargo (people and boxes) and get out the weighing scale and run the actual numbers? I wonder how many of the original aircraft designers would have a heart attack when they looked at the numbers.
 
It's just Rick said:
The captain would then only need to instruct the first officer to push a button. That would allow the captain to get as much sleep as possible which is necessary for the safety of the aircraft and its crew. The first officer could also get caught up on reading magazines, doing crosswords and solving sodoku puzzles.
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That's what the autopilot is already for!! :)
 
I just wish they would freaking fly!!!!!

Three and a half hours sitting on the ramp in Baltimore Wednesday night. My flight that was supposed to get into O'Hare at 6:30 got in a little after 10:00. Got home at 12:15 (and I had no checked bags to wait for!).

Last night 1 hour delay before boarding, two hours on the ramp and then they cancelled the flight as the winds exceeded the plane's crosswind capability. Now I know the winds were really blowing but we were trying to take off on a runway with a 90 degree crosswind for heaven's sake (Rwy 14). They were landing on runway 22 and surely they could have fit a few takeoffs in there as well. Or how about using runway 27?

All remaining flights last night were full and already delayed. Best they could do was tell me 7:00am this morning, which meant I had to get home last night, get 4 hours sleep and back to the airport this morning. Said the hell with it and cancelled altogether and came home.

Not only are they nickle and diming you on everything, the service is going totally downhill. I had to laugh when they thanked us for our "patience" in Baltimore. What was I going to do? get off and walk home?

Arrrgh! I'm so frustrated. And now I have to go to California next week!
 
bstratt said:
I just wish they would freaking fly!!!!!

Three and a half hours sitting on the ramp in Baltimore Wednesday night. My flight that was supposed to get into O'Hare at 6:30 got in a little after 10:00. Got home at 12:15 (and I had no checked bags to wait for!).
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I was in hotel in the Baltimore area watching funnel clouds and pretty big thunderstorms come in, one after the other. If you were the pilot responsible for ~200 lives, would YOU fly in that?

I wouldn't.
 
Brian Austin said:
I was in hotel in the Baltimore area watching funnel clouds and pretty big thunderstorms come in, one after the other. If you were the pilot responsible for ~200 lives, would YOU fly in that?

I wouldn't.
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During the Thunderstorms - no. They shut the airport twice. Once at 5:00pm for about 20 minutes and the other time around 7-7:30 for about 20 minutes. In between, before and after they kept saying it was ATC flow control issues due to the severe weather west of us (they didn't say but I was assuming they were having to funnel traffic through a few holes). If true then I'm not blaming them but I've been lied to too many times before this to 100% trust what they're telling us. It's just frustrating sitting there watching other planes land and takeoff!
 
I was out ferrying a few planes during the massive storms on June 4th in the DC area. We only got our power back on the evening of the 6th.

I had an easier time in the airplanes I was flying than the airliners do - since my routes were short (JYO to HGR) I could take advantage of breaks between waves, and I could maintain VFR and turn tail and run back to my departure (which I did once) when the weather ahead looked bad. The poor bastids coming down from the flight levels were sca-rewed, they didn't have the options I did. That whole system was moving at over 60 knots at times.

Sorry you were stuck on the ground, but this is one time when the weather delays were valid.

PS - power transformers exploding make a very pretty orange sparkler.
 
bstratt said:
During the Thunderstorms - no. They shut the airport twice. Once at 5:00pm for about 20 minutes and the other time around 7-7:30 for about 20 minutes. In between, before and after they kept saying it was ATC flow control issues due to the severe weather west of us (they didn't say but I was assuming they were having to funnel traffic through a few holes). If true then I'm not blaming them but I've been lied to too many times before this to 100% trust what they're telling us. It's just frustrating sitting there watching other planes land and takeoff!
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As Tim mentioned, it was pretty rough and coming through in waves. Power was out everywhere. Even if you got into the air, as Tim inferred, you'd have to go up through the rough stuff to get to the smoother (safer air).

A quick shot from my 7th floor hotel room...
 

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bstratt said:
During the Thunderstorms - no. They shut the airport twice. Once at 5:00pm for about 20 minutes and the other time around 7-7:30 for about 20 minutes. In between, before and after they kept saying it was ATC flow control issues due to the severe weather west of us (they didn't say but I was assuming they were having to funnel traffic through a few holes). If true then I'm not blaming them but I've been lied to too many times before this to 100% trust what they're telling us. It's just frustrating sitting there watching other planes land and takeoff!
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Chances are those planes had been waiting hours upon hours too. This last week has been horrible up and down the coast. Our 2:00 departure left every day after 5:00. The planes you saw flying in an out were probably supposed to be there three hours sooner.

Everyone seems to think that we lie about delays, but we really don't...we don't gain anything by lying, I don't know why everyone thinks it's some scheme against them. If it's a mechanical, we'll tell you. If it's weather or ATC, we'll tell you. If we don't give you an update, it's probably because we don't know anything. If ATC puts a flow control program or delay program in effect and says "update in 90 minutes" or "wheels up in 90 minutes" we can call them all we want, but it's only going to slow them down more and elicit the same response..."update in 87 minutes."

Just because the weather has pushed past the field doesn't mean that the airport is out of the woods. When you're talking about arrivals and departures from Bravo and large Charlie airports, they have to funnel everyone in and out through departure and arrival gates...if one of those gates is blocked by storms, even 100 miles away, that's the ball game. And then, once the storms pass, they still have to have flow control so that all the delayed flights aren't descending upon them at the same time. It's like how traffic will be slowed down on a highway for an hour after a wreck is cleared....it takes a lot of time to get everything back up to speed. Throw into it IFR conditions so everyone has to be vectored for an approach and they can't use visual spacing minimums...
 
you know, they put soo much extra crap on those planes for creature comforts, its unreal. why have cans of soda, why not 2-liter bottles (heck, those are cheaper last I checked)? why have such over engineered armrests? why have the seats engineered to withstand a obese person on impact? The FAA average weight thing is 170 lbs, why not engineer everything to that standard?

Heck, why not cut jet bridges and just use stairs in the trucks to get passengers on? it'd save them a lot of money.
 
fgcason said:
Hmmm... Has the FAA actualy conducted a series of random W/B experiment on a heavily loaded pressurized tube cattle car? Load it for the flight, rubber stamp the W/B then just before the plane gets to the runway without warning, pull all the cargo (people and boxes) and get out the weighing scale and run the actual numbers? I wonder how many of the original aircraft designers would have a heart attack when they looked at the numbers.
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We did that unofficially a few times...estimated the true weight of people and bags. Using standard weights we were at 16,820lbs. Using estimated weights we would have been in the 17,600lbs range (max t/o weight is 17,120lbs). Of course, this was the trip on which we used all of our seat belt extenders, all the extenders from the plane next to us, and all the spare extenders that the mechanics had. Not to mention the fact that half the people on the plane decided they needed carry everything they own up to New Hampshire. But it was legal, according to the paperwork.
 
I have another fuel saving tip.

If planes descend with engines at idle, why not shut off an engine? (only in a multi-engine plane of course for safety...)
 
rubber314chicken said:
I have another fuel saving tip.

If planes descend with engines at idle, why not shut off an engine? (only in a multi-engine plane of course for safety...)
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I'll take a lost engine on a single most times over a lost engine on a piston twin-engine aircraft; particularly on take-off and departure.
 
KennyFlys said:
I'll take a lost engine on a single most times over a lost engine on a piston twin-engine aircraft; particularly on take-off and departure.
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yea, but if you are at the end of the runway.....

why not just push the plane?

and show me a large capacity jet that has one engine? The put 2 on for the whole redundancy thing.
 
Teller1900 said:
Chances are those planes had been waiting hours upon hours too. This last week has been horrible up and down the coast. Our 2:00 departure left every day after 5:00. The planes you saw flying in an out were probably supposed to be there three hours sooner.

Everyone seems to think that we lie about delays, but we really don't...we don't gain anything by lying, I don't know why everyone thinks it's some scheme against them. If it's a mechanical, we'll tell you. If it's weather or ATC, we'll tell you. If we don't give you an update, it's probably because we don't know anything. If ATC puts a flow control program or delay program in effect and says "update in 90 minutes" or "wheels up in 90 minutes" we can call them all we want, but it's only going to slow them down more and elicit the same response..."update in 87 minutes."

Just because the weather has pushed past the field doesn't mean that the airport is out of the woods. When you're talking about arrivals and departures from Bravo and large Charlie airports, they have to funnel everyone in and out through departure and arrival gates...if one of those gates is blocked by storms, even 100 miles away, that's the ball game. And then, once the storms pass, they still have to have flow control so that all the delayed flights aren't descending upon them at the same time. It's like how traffic will be slowed down on a highway for an hour after a wreck is cleared....it takes a lot of time to get everything back up to speed. Throw into it IFR conditions so everyone has to be vectored for an approach and they can't use visual spacing minimums...
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Which is why the hub and spoke system SUCKS.
 
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