Discrimination?
In May, the American press was abuzz when a video was shared showing a female tourist being forced to step on a scale "like weighing luggage" before the plane took off.
The video attracted nearly 2 million views on social media at the time. Many criticized the airline for discriminating against plus-size passengers, calling it a "humiliating measure." Passengers on the spot said: "It's a small plane, so they need to weigh us for takeoff for safety reasons," according to the Washington Post .
Another revealed: "Flying home from the Philippines and they weighed me like that… Never been so embarrassed in my life."
Female passenger must step on the luggage scale
However, many people sided with the airlines. "Airlines care about weight limits on small planes because they need to place the center of gravity in a certain part of the plane."
The incident comes amid a series of complaints from passengers that airlines are not accommodating plus-size passengers. They argue that airlines should make aisles wider to accommodate larger passengers, calling the current arrangement “discriminatory”.
In 2021, the US Federal Aviation Administration announced that airlines will soon have to require larger passengers to step on the scale — or provide their weight — before boarding.
This would help ensure that planes, especially small ones, do not exceed the weight limit. To protect passenger privacy, “the results on the scales must be kept confidential.” However, the measure was later changed when the regulator said that only random passengers would be weighed.
In August, Korean Air began weighing passengers for several weeks. A spokesperson for the airline told CNBC that airlines are required by law to weigh passengers and their carry-on luggage at least once every five years and that this is “important for the safety of flight operations.” The announcement was met with a public backlash, according to local media.
Is the passenger weight reasonable?
Certainly not, says Vance Hilderman, CEO of aviation safety firm Afuzion. “If you’re on a small Bombardier or a small Embraer jet, and you have 10 very obese people… that might make a difference. But on a commercial aircraft, with 120 or more people, it doesn’t.”
Passenger weighing sign at Auckland Airport, New Zealand recently
The extra weight on passengers is nothing compared to the weight of fuel, cargo and the plane itself, he said. "Fuel weighs 20 times more than the weight of passengers," he said.
Hilderman agrees that people are getting bigger, but passengers are different in other ways too. “Americans are getting heavier. So are the Chinese, so are the Koreans. But passengers are flying younger… so that compensates for the increase in average human weight.”
But Shem Malmquist, a lecturer at Florida Tech Aeronautical University, insists random weighing is a good idea.
"Airlines use average passenger weight, but people are getting much heavier. 300 people heavier than average can cause a plane to be significantly overweight, while all performance calculations such as runway length, altitude, obstacles, landing distance... depend on weight," he analyzed.
On the other hand, Jose Silva, associate professor at the School of Engineering at RMIT University, Australia, said that airlines are hesitant to weigh passengers because of the sensitive nature.
But more and more airlines are weighing passengers. Air New Zealand started weighing passengers in June for safety and fuel efficiency reasons.
Finnair did the same in 2017, and Hawaiian Air has been conducting multiple passenger weight checks on flights between Honolulu and Samoa.
Commercial airline seating was based on average passenger weight from the 1950s to the 1970s. Since then, people have gotten bigger, but seats haven't gotten proportionally bigger.
Passenger size on planes is a contentious topic - with overweight passengers alleging discrimination over aisle and seat sizes, while smaller passengers have publicly expressed outrage at encroachment on seats.
But unlike other passenger service industries, the airline industry does not expand the number of seats.
Passenger cabins on flights are getting more and more cramped.
Will airlines expand seats?
As for whether airlines should increase seat sizes for everyone, Hilderman said that while it's mathematically possible, it's not practical.
“The fuselage diameter is predetermined. We have 29,000 commercial aircraft in operation right now and we only produce about 1,500 a year, so it would take 20 years to replace the entire fleet.”
Refitting planes with wider seats would mean narrowing the already cramped aisles, he said. To widen the aisles, one seat would have to be removed from each row, leading to a 20-25% increase in ticket prices.
Arnold Barnett, professor of statistics and management science at the MIT Sloan School of Management, told CNBC that most passengers are willing to tolerate the current seat size in exchange for lower fares.
If seating changes, "airfares will have to go up and travel will become more difficult for budget-conscious passengers." For many people, a cramped seat on a plane is better than a seat on a bus.
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