With the price of oil shooting up towards US$100 a barrel again, several airlines have started raising their fuel surcharges. Weight is now such a major factor for airlines, with excess baggage requiring extra fees almost universally and on-board carry-on bags subject to strict weight limits by some carriers. It therefore seems to me basically unfair that an Asian weighing between 50 and 60kgs should have to pay exactly the same fuel surcharge as someone weighing 120 kgs or more. After all, the airline needs more fuel to get the heavier guy off the ground.

 

I have read about one US airline which has been trying (successfully?) to have seriously overweight people pay for two seats. But the logical conclusion to this is surely not merely to penalise the overweight, but also to apportion costs relating to weight on a much fairer basis. Slim people should then pay less. The logistics of weighing every passenger and having variable surcharges imposed on check-in may well be an area airlines and airports will want to get nowhere near. But if I were a trim young Asian, I’d sure be trying to find some organisation to lobby for what I considered my right to pay less!

I think the airlines should weigh way not only your luggage but the passenger and all carry-on items as well as this is what the airline is actually transporting. They could then charge on a sliding scale different amounts depending on exactly what weight they transporting. We are increasingly being treated like cargo they might as well charge us fees like cargo.

While I doubt this will decrease the ticket price for those weighing less it might at least slow down the inevitable price increases.