Should overweight people pay more for seat in a plane?
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Grantywanty
Registered Senior Member
And men would pay more in general.
OK. I like the the price per pound. Then everyone get's their ass on the scale and lives by the consequences of the genes and dietary choices.
Grantywanty
Registered Senior Member
There are two issues:
fuel use
space use
I can see where tall people get discriminated against.
I think the forumala would be a bit complicated, but I think it should be applied to every adult passenger.
The price of such a system could outweigh any benefit.
I think the idea is a rather good one, well, one that can be explored further at any rate.
What if the fat person has only a small, lightweight carry-on and another has two big check-in bags? What if the fat person weighs 302 including luggage? What if the tall, average 200 pound man checked in two 50-pound suitcases? Making fat people pay more will never work.
I'd rather sit next to a fat person than someone who reeks of smoke, garlic, onions, booze, bad breath...Or someone who won't shut up.
A 300-pound man who is 5'6" seems a lot fatter than a man who is 6'5" and 300 pounds. Should they pay the same? The short guy is so much "fatter."
The super-huge should only pay a little extra if there is nowhere on the plane with two seats together. Otherwise they could seat the person next to an empty. I don't see that many huge people flying. Most adult Americans seem to be overweight though.
No one would pay $4/pound to Houston. Not when you can get tix for $99.
I'd rather sit next to a fat person than someone who reeks of smoke, garlic, onions, booze, bad breath...Or someone who won't shut up.
A 300-pound man who is 5'6" seems a lot fatter than a man who is 6'5" and 300 pounds. Should they pay the same? The short guy is so much "fatter."
The super-huge should only pay a little extra if there is nowhere on the plane with two seats together. Otherwise they could seat the person next to an empty. I don't see that many huge people flying. Most adult Americans seem to be overweight though.
No one would pay $4/pound to Houston. Not when you can get tix for $99.
Everyone is overweight... except me, ..I'm a pulsating bullet of manpower( shit, hate it when I start sounding like Sandy).
p.s Lardarses should pay more tax too!
Let's look at the arguments as to why they should or shouldn't have to pay more.
Avatar says they should have to pay more because they weigh more and he has to pay more for luggage that weighs more. But luggage and people are two different things. But does weight make a difference? Maybe. But certainly space makes a difference.
I think whether or not they should have to pay should have to do with space taken up. Imagine there are two sections of a plane--one with big seats for large people and one for normal people (BMI<25). I see no problem with charging those with the larger seats more (the fat side) than those with the larger seats because they take up less space. You can cram more normal people into a space than smaller people. Why shouldn't they pay less?
Avatar says they should have to pay more because they weigh more and he has to pay more for luggage that weighs more. But luggage and people are two different things. But does weight make a difference? Maybe. But certainly space makes a difference.
I think whether or not they should have to pay should have to do with space taken up. Imagine there are two sections of a plane--one with big seats for large people and one for normal people (BMI<25). I see no problem with charging those with the larger seats more (the fat side) than those with the larger seats because they take up less space. You can cram more normal people into a space than smaller people. Why shouldn't they pay less?
Thoreau
Valued Senior Member
Sure they should. They affect the fuel consumption of the aircraft.
The heavier they are the more fuel the jets consume in order to keep the plane airborn.
Pandaemoni
Valued Senior Member
What does anyone here care? Do any of you run airlines? Do any of you seriously believe that your flight if going to crash because the guy in row 12 is addicted to Big Macs?
If fat people make planes less safe, then I agree they can and should pay more so the airline can take measures to compensate...but other than a few wackos in this thread, I have never heard of such a safety concern.
As for whether they have to pay to make up the extra fuel cost:
(a) what's their per kg share? That plane looks awfully heavy without passengers and luggage so I'm not sure the difference is as significant as some seem to assume it is, because you're spreading the very large fixed amount of mass relative to the total fuel the plane needs to carry, that gets spread out over all the all the passengers. I suspect the added cost winds up being trivial (and doubling the passenger's weight certainly doesn't double the marginal fuel cost for the flight, unless fattie weighs something greatly in excess of the weight of the unloaded aircraft all by itself, so it should not really double the cost of the ticket ,at least from the standpoint of fuel consumption.)
(b) In any event, it seems to me that that is a perfectly legitimate issue for someone running an airline to raise. You might lose business as some people (fat or not) might not like being judged when other non-judgmental airlines exist, but I have no problem with the CEO making that choice. It is not, however, something that should be decided by "people on the internets" generally.
Me personally, it's annoying to sit next to fat people. (It's annoying to sit next to anyone save attractive women or famous celebrities, if you ask me.) Should I be able to charge them extra money because *I* don't like sitting next to them? No. It's not my airline, they don't guarantee my comfort, I don't get to make decisions about what they do with empty seats and inconveniences like sitting next to Bubba the Hutt are part of life. You suck it up and move on.
If fat people make planes less safe, then I agree they can and should pay more so the airline can take measures to compensate...but other than a few wackos in this thread, I have never heard of such a safety concern.
As for whether they have to pay to make up the extra fuel cost:
(a) what's their per kg share? That plane looks awfully heavy without passengers and luggage so I'm not sure the difference is as significant as some seem to assume it is, because you're spreading the very large fixed amount of mass relative to the total fuel the plane needs to carry, that gets spread out over all the all the passengers. I suspect the added cost winds up being trivial (and doubling the passenger's weight certainly doesn't double the marginal fuel cost for the flight, unless fattie weighs something greatly in excess of the weight of the unloaded aircraft all by itself, so it should not really double the cost of the ticket ,at least from the standpoint of fuel consumption.)
(b) In any event, it seems to me that that is a perfectly legitimate issue for someone running an airline to raise. You might lose business as some people (fat or not) might not like being judged when other non-judgmental airlines exist, but I have no problem with the CEO making that choice. It is not, however, something that should be decided by "people on the internets" generally.
Me personally, it's annoying to sit next to fat people. (It's annoying to sit next to anyone save attractive women or famous celebrities, if you ask me.) Should I be able to charge them extra money because *I* don't like sitting next to them? No. It's not my airline, they don't guarantee my comfort, I don't get to make decisions about what they do with empty seats and inconveniences like sitting next to Bubba the Hutt are part of life. You suck it up and move on.
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could be an option except that airlines are all about making profit. Installing special seats will be inflexible (what if no fat people are on a flight), while just charging for two seats will give them a nice little cashflow.
I always thought that it would be more fair to just weigh the people, with their luggage, at the gate and charge the ticket accordingly.
Make flying flexible.
Be slim and travel with nothing - pay almost nothing, except a very basic fare.
Be fat and travel with 50kg of lugagge - pay a lot!!!
It could give people options that never existed before. Maybe you are a backpacker travelling to south america. You take no luggage. Your ticket becomes dirt cheap. You use the extra money to buy a backpack at the destination.
It could give rise to local incentives to the economy. You arrive in a city. You see a store selling new and second-hand backpacks etc.
Or you sell toothbrushes. etc.
Till Eulenspiegel
Registered Member
The problem has come about not because people are fatter but because airlines have made seats smaller as have movie theaters and live theaters.
As for paying for two seats, that is ridiculous. A ticket can cost upwards of $1,000 plus. Do you really expect someone to pay two grand to fly.
The same with upgrading to business class. Business class is unbelievably expensive. My wife and I flew business class to Australia from JFK airport in New York last year. The fare was $32,000, round trip, $16,000 each. Happily I had a ton of airmiles and cashed in 320,000 of them so the flight cost us five dollars each.
Since fat people aren't really a safety problem or a cost to the airline problem except in a very, very miniscule way it is mainly a comfort problem. Fat people can make their seat neighbors uncomfortable. The same can be said for overly perfumed or cologned people, people with body odor, loud people, people with crying babies. Should they also be forced to purchase a seat in a special section of the plane for which they will have to pay extra?
As for paying for two seats, that is ridiculous. A ticket can cost upwards of $1,000 plus. Do you really expect someone to pay two grand to fly.
The same with upgrading to business class. Business class is unbelievably expensive. My wife and I flew business class to Australia from JFK airport in New York last year. The fare was $32,000, round trip, $16,000 each. Happily I had a ton of airmiles and cashed in 320,000 of them so the flight cost us five dollars each.
Since fat people aren't really a safety problem or a cost to the airline problem except in a very, very miniscule way it is mainly a comfort problem. Fat people can make their seat neighbors uncomfortable. The same can be said for overly perfumed or cologned people, people with body odor, loud people, people with crying babies. Should they also be forced to purchase a seat in a special section of the plane for which they will have to pay extra?
That all has been discussed here, please read the thread.
make me
No. Flying is not a right. You don't have to fly at all. Nor do you have to pay for two seats unless you taking up two seats.
Surely you don't think it is fair that the person next to you is paying for your space.
I agree with Avatar, the heavier you are, the more you should pay, and if people cannot confine themselves to the bounds of their seat, they should have to buy two seats.
It's ridiculous that a light person would get charged for extra baggage weight by the kilo, when an obese person could be tens of kilos heavier.
A friend of mine, returning from the USA got some obese woman trying to sit next him. She had the audacity to say to him 'If you need the bathroom honey you'd better go now, I don't get up once I'm sat down'. Yeah right, imprisoned by a fattie for eight hours? I think not. He got moved to a new seat. Airlines will have to start charging, they can't expect slim people to put up with a fat person's bingo wings flapping into their space, and can't afford to give fatties a free seat.
It's ridiculous that a light person would get charged for extra baggage weight by the kilo, when an obese person could be tens of kilos heavier.
A friend of mine, returning from the USA got some obese woman trying to sit next him. She had the audacity to say to him 'If you need the bathroom honey you'd better go now, I don't get up once I'm sat down'. Yeah right, imprisoned by a fattie for eight hours? I think not. He got moved to a new seat. Airlines will have to start charging, they can't expect slim people to put up with a fat person's bingo wings flapping into their space, and can't afford to give fatties a free seat.