Imagine checking in for a flight with your two teenage children. At the counter, you are told that your youngest teenager’s suitcase is two kilograms over the limit. You get slapped with a $75 penalty for their excess luggage.
This penalty feels arbitrary and unfair. The youngest weighs about 45 kg, and their luggage weighs 25 kg, making their total payload on the flight 70 kg.
Their older sibling, on the other hand, weighs 65 kg, and has brought 23 kg of luggage to check in. Their total weight is higher – 88 kg – yet they receive no penalty.
Obviously, things aren’t that simple. Charging passengers based on their weight is highly controversial for many reasons. But that hasn’t stopped some airlines experimenting with such policies.
Imagine checking in for your flight only to have the staff tell you to purchase an extra seat as you are a plus-size passenger. You feel discriminated against because you are using the same service as other passengers and your weight is beyond your control.
But despite the lived experience of many and hot debate in the media, there has not been a formal study into what passengers themselves think about this matter.
Our recently published research examined air passengers’ views on alternative airfare policies to understand whether the public finds them acceptable and what ethical considerations determine their views.
Though we found a range of ethical contradictions, most travelers were guided by self-interest.
A controversial but important topic
The issue of whether airlines should weigh passengers is an ethical minefield with no easy answers.
Despite its sensitivity, the aviation industry can’t ignore passenger weight. Airlines intermittently undertake passenger weight surveys as they need to accurately calculate payload to ensure flight safety and estimate fuel consumption.
The evidence shows passengers are getting heavier. Airlines including the now-defunct Samoa Air and Hawaiian Airlines have taken things one step further and experimented with weighing passengers regularly.
Samoa Air, for example, became the first airline to introduce a “pay-as-you-weigh” policy, where the cost of your ticket was directly proportional to the combined weight of you and your luggage.
In contrast, Canada has now long had a “one person, one fare” policy. It is prohibited and deemed discriminatory to force passengers living with a disability to purchase a second seat for themselves if they require one, including those with functional disability due to obesity.
To complicate matters further, the issue of passenger and luggage weight is not only ethical and financial, but also environmental. More weight on an aircraft leads to more jet fuel being burned and more carbon emissions.
About 5% of human-driven climate change can be attributed to aviation, and the industry faces enormous pressure to reduce fuel consumption while it waits for low carbon substitutes to become available.
What do passengers actually think?
To get a better sense of how the public actually feels about this issue, we surveyed 1,012 U.S. travelers of different weights, presenting them with three alternatives:
- standard policy – currently the most widely used policy with passengers paying a standard price, irrespective of their weight
- threshold policy – passengers are penalized if they are over a threshold weight
- unit of body weight policy – passengers pay a personalized price based on their own body weight, per each pound (0.45 kg).
The standard policy was the most acceptable for participants of differing weight, although the heavier the passenger, the more they preferred the standard policy. This can be partially explained by status quo bias. Generally, people are likely to choose a familiar answer.
The threshold policy was the least acceptable. This policy was seen to violate established social norms and be generally less fair.
The unit of body weight policy was preferred to the threshold policy, although participants raised concerns about whether it would be accepted by society.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, we found that self-interest played a clear role in determining whether respondents considered a policy acceptable.
Younger, male, financially well-off travelers with lower personal weight generally found the alternative policies more acceptable.
An ethical conflict
Alternative airfare policies that are based on passenger weight bring environmental and ethical concerns into conflict. Obviously, the effect isn’t from any one traveller, in particular, but averages over the entire industry.
Interestingly, respondents that were more concerned about the environment – “ecocentric” – preferred air fare policies that would reduce the carbon emissions. This made them more open to the controversial alternatives.
While the threshold policy was clearly rejected by many respondents as discriminatory, environmental concern played a role in the level of acceptance of the unit of body weight policy.
It’s important to apply a critical lens here. These ecocentric travelers were also generally younger and had lower personal weights, so many would benefit from the alternative policies financially.
For policymakers overall, our study suggests when it comes to controversial ticketing policies, the public is more likely to be swayed by self-interest than anything else.
Denis Tolkach is a senior lecturer at James Cook University, Townsville, Australia. Stephen Pratt is a professor at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.
The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.
© The Conversation
17 Comments
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TaiwanIsNotChina
If someone is 6'9, yes their weight is beyond their control. There are also theories that metabolism does very significantly from person to person.
Bret T
To me, having been touched for entire flights by the bodies of people who can't contain their fat within the envelop of one seat, I am for some form of "body width" and/or weight requirement. I've had people's fat ooze under the armrest and press against me. Or they are just so large the armrest presses into their upper body and fat comes over the top. Sorry people this is not "shaming", these are facts from my life.
If a person can't fit horizontally into their own seat and its air space, they should have to buy a second seat. I don't want their sweating body against me for hours.
Chico3
Southwest Airlines (and I'm sure some others in the US) have been doing this for years. You might feel discriminated against, but if you can't fit into the seat, it is fair to purchase another seat. Not doing so would take sales away from airlines and would also keep other perspective passengers from using those seats.
divinda
The entire "ethical" argument presented here is based on the fallacy that one's weight is somehow an uncontrollable aspect of life. It is not.
K3PO
People of healthy weight should get a discount.
YeahRight
I haven't flown in years (and hopefully never will again), so I don't know how much worse the airlines (and security) have gotten since I last had the displeasure.
How does this even work? Does one make a reservation and pay for a ticket in advance and then get billed more when checking in if they are over the limit? Is there any partial refund for those who are underweight? Do you list your weight when making a reservation? What of those who lie about their weight? Because no one ever lies about their weight, right? What if they didn't lie about their weight but suffered some kind of illness drastically reducing or increasing their weight? Any refunds or penalties?
I just don't understand how this is supposed to work. Good thing I've sworn off flying for the rest of my life.
Moonraker
I would hardly object to paying for body weight even carrying a few kilos more than I should be but these days I am always amazed how much luggage people get away with. It's like they are moving house. Often people's carry-on baggage is bigger than my checked baggage. I wish there were some kind of market for unused baggage allowance. I always have at least 10 kgs spare, sometimes the whole allowance but airlines won't reimburse.
SapperJon
In fairness a standard weight per height table should be compiled with a band set for each height with people being outside of this band should be charged accordingly. Going as far as reduced fares for people below the band for their height, which of course means that people who are obese will pay more and if morbidly obese pay for two seats.
Bad Haircut
I think weight is a less important factor than encroaching on neighbouring passengers' seats. Perhaps put in a frame at check-in that people need to walk through that is the width of the economy class seat between the midpoints of the armrests. If they can't get through when standing normally, they need to pay extra. Otherwise it's unfair on the people sitting next to them. Exceptions could be made in situations where there are adjacent empty seats, but on full flights it should be non-negotiable.
Great Bird
Are you sure you thought this through? How is it fair for neighbouring passengers if the guy who takes up parts of your seat has payed more money to the airline?
ian
What policies would reduce carbon emissions?
Zaphod
I see no ethical conflict. This is simply about facts of life.... a baby does not occupy the same space and does not need the same amount of fuel as an overweight adult. Where weight and size matters, such as in air transport, of course has to be acknowledged.
divinda
Then base it on BMI.
And before you call out the skewed BMI of body builders, massive muscles are equally a lifestyle choice.
And yet somehow just 60 or 70 years ago the metabolic rate of the majority of humanity was pretty much the same.
Bad Haircut
I intentionally omitted adding that the encroaching passengers could perhaps have a proportion of their airfare shifted across to any neighbouring passengers, effectively subsidising the neighbouring passengers' fares. This would be a nightmare to administer due to the possibility of adjacent passengers paying different fares at the start, and determining how much extra space the encroacher has taken.
So the simplest solution would be to make applicable passengers pay for an additional seat or get bumped to another flight with an adjoining empty seat.
The Ripper!
I pay extra for baggage that is overweight; people should pay extra for their excess volume.
virusrex
Airlines as well, how many of the policies end up with passengers paying less than the current flat fee? I could guess this is not the rule. Companies are not going to risk having flights full of skinny passengers paying a significantly lower price for their tickets.
It is not something so drastic, it is just that many different factors (including some that are out of your control) definitely affect the propensity of people to be overweight. Ignoring those factors is as invalid as pretending they fully determine the problem.
This may surprise you but it is not such a clear cut conclusion. Lifestyles can affect the metabolism, and the current daily live is not the same for most people now than 70 years ago.
girl_in_tokyo
divindaToday 06:57 am JST
People don't control their height or how they are built. I can see why someone would need to purchase a second seat if they can't fit into a normal one, but airlines also keep trying to fit more and more seats into economy. Meanwhile passengers who can afford business can class stretch out.
This is more about the greed of the airline industry than anything else.