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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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!<p>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.
Should we charge more for disabled people?<p>Does any additional cost to a company mean that it can treat its customers differently?<p>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.<p>To ask one to pay more for a service <i>because</i> of what they are is unequal treatment.<p>The people weighing less are charged more than they would be otherwise, so that everyone has the same price.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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?<p>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?
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.
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.<p>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.<p>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.
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.<p>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>Yet, in terms of the airplane’s fuel consumption, it is all the same whether the extra weight is baggage or body fat.</i><p>... 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.<p>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.<p>The thing is, it's swings and roundabouts, and wanting to charge people a 'fat fee' is oversimplistic.
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.<p>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.<p>So should people who are muscular be exempt? Do we do it based on height vs muscle or body fat percentage?<p>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.