I do think the passenger should be weighed with their bags.
Ultimately the total mass of the person and their belongings is what is being lifted into the air. If there is a dignified way to weigh both, I think that would be fairest.
Ultimately the total mass of the person and their belongings is what is being lifted into the air. If there is a dignified way to weigh both, I think that would be fairest.
I think it was a pacific island airline that did it first.
However, I'm the same height as aplummer. Whilst I probably should lose some weight, my lowest healthy weight is inevitably going to be more than any smaller person, and that was never in my control. My clothes are also bulkier and heavier.
While there are many small positive aspects to my size. Travel comfort is not one of them. It would be unreasonable to expect us to react positively to something that makes that worse.
If one combined weight is 220lb/100kg vs another combined weight of 320/145. That’s quite a difference in fuel requirements to move mass from one place to another. I don’t see why not discounting it proportionally to increased cost + opportunity cost. It’s not a penalty if it’s just proportional to actual cost.
They already discount children for theoretically weighing less than adults.
I don’t see the connection to profit you’re making.
These have all been quite small regional airline flights (e.g. 1-2 layout)
As for dignified, I don't know what they'd have said if I'd picked out something way to small or big, say 120 or 250. It was mild weather though, and nobody was wearing clothes that would make it hard to guess weight fairly well.
Neither of those points are true, and you didn't address my question as to whether you're happy to pay more for health insurance, since it costs the insurer more.
>Neither of those points are true
Well, they are, so I‘ll lay it out. Aplummer and James are on a two-person plane flying to Whereverville. James and his luggage weigh 150 lbs, Aplummer and his luggage weigh 300 lbs. It takes 50 gallons of fuel to transport the total 450 lbs. At $2.50 per gallon, the total is $125. So ”the actual cost of the goods and services” is 16.6 gallons ($41.66) for James, and 33.3 gallons ($83.33) for Aplummer. But Aplummer doesn’t want to pay $83.33. He says “So I should pay more for being 6’7”?” and says him and James should both pay $62.50, leaving James “to pay for extra goods and services they aren’t using so [he] can have them for free”.
[1] https://quotewizard.com/health-insurance/health-insurance-ra...
Untrue.
> Well, they are, so I‘ll lay it out.
That cost calculation is completely ridiculous without taking into account the capacity of the plane, overhead, seat class, disability status, ticket type, volume of luggage and a million other things. Which is why tickets are broken down to "ordinary adult" and "ordinary child".
Someone has to pay. There’s no free lunch.
Why make the lighter people pay for the heavier people?
Yet airlines don't charge per pound, they have cut offs which are pretty generous (e.g I've never been charged for extra weight on checkin luggage) and they don't even bother weighing carry on bags. Because as much as airlines will nickle and dime you, there are limits to all the little surcharges that people are willing to pay and to the complexity/inconvenience of the checkin process.
But when it gets to bodyweight you have even more hurdles. Someone is in a wheelchair, should that be weighed? Well, no they have a disability. So if an obese passenger claims it's a medical condition, they will likely complain about discrimination. Yet carry on bags and checkin luggage can be weighed right now with little complaints about violating ADA. But airlines aren't willing to do even that.