Airline Adopts Pay as you Weigh!

[Guest fountainhall]

It's a suggestion/idea that has been discussed on several threads. Now it's a reality - on one airline, at least. Travel Samoa Air and your fare will literally be determined by our weight. For example. from Faleolo in Samoa to Pago Pago in American Samoa you will pay $106 (US$46) if you weigh 50kgs, $148.40 if you are 70 kgs or $254.40 if you are 120 kgs.

 

According to the airline's website - 

 

 "Booking a flight with us is as easy as inputting your approximate weight into our online booking engine (don't worry, we will weigh you again at the airport) – you then can prepay your 'guesstimate', guaranteeing you that much weight is allocated to you for that flight … with Samoa Air, you are the master of how much (or little!) your air ticket will cost."

 

And the airline says it has been getting good feedback, considering families with children benefit considerably with the much cheaper children's fares.

 

Mind you, the Samoan Islands have one of the worst rates of obesity in the world with more than 80% of the population aged 15 and over being overweight.

 

Samoa Air's chief executive, Chris Langton, said charging by weight was the fairest method. "People have always travelled on the basis of their seat but, as many airline operators know, airlines don't run on seats; they run on weight and particularly the smaller the aircraft you are in the less variance you can accept in terms of the difference in weight between passengers," he told ABC News.

 

Where Samoan Air lead, will Ryanair be far behind? 

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/02/samoa-air-pay-what-you-weigh

 

When will we be able to type 80 (EIGHTY) without getting that stupid icon???

[Guest scottishguy]

Great - this will likely mean even more (lightweight) screaming kids on their flights.

 

Thankfully they don't fly anywhere that I might want to go.

 

Ryanair, on the other hand, fly 50-100 miles from places I might like to go - but certainly not with them

[TotallyOz]

When will we be able to type 80 (EIGHTY) without getting that stupid icon???

Has this been reported in the comments section or just in the threads here? If only here, things get overlooked. I tried to find a thread about this in the Comments and Suggestions and I could not.

 

Or, has it been reported to the admins yet via email or the Contact Us?

[baobao]

It's really the most fair way of paying for excess weight that I've heard yet... and honestly - I'm not being judgmental about people's personal weight whatsoever. Nobody's called me anything close to "petite" in decades.

 

If you exceed a weight limit with your baggage you pay a premium for the overage... why not gauge passenger fees by weight?

[Bob]

Seems to me that the only fair way is to make people who can't reasonably fit into one seat to purchase two seats. The only time I have any irritation toward the horizontally challenged is when their bulk extends into the seating area that I paid for and expected to occupy alone. 

[Guest fountainhall]

That may work safely for large aircraft - but not for small commuter jets. Ten years ago, 19 passengers and 2 pilots were killed when their full Air Midwest Beechcraft 1900D aircraft operating as US Air Express Flight 5481 stalled after take-off and crashed into a hanger.

 

Although not a primary cause of the accident, the plane was overloaded partly as a result of the average weight of each passenger being 9 kgs over the FAA approved guidelines on passenger weight. This weight guideline had not changed since 1936! Following the crash, the airline increased average weight to just over 90kgs, but the NTSB recommended that operators of small commuter aircraft use actual, not estimated, weight for both passengers and luggage. Today, 70% of small carriers still use an estimated weight!

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Midwest_Flight_5481