Samoan airline defends charging passengers by weight

mayotom

Samoan airline defends charging passengers by weight - RTE News

I think its great and hope to see this with more and more airlines

A Samoan airline that says it is the world's first carrier to charge passengers by their weight rather than per seat has defended the plan as the fairest way to fly.
It says that in some cases fares actually end up cheaper than conventional tickets.
Samoa Air, which opened in 2012, asks passengers to declare their personal weight during booking, which is then charged per kilogram at a rate dependent on flight length.
The customers will also be weighed at the check-in counter.

Stovepipe

weighing of pax has gone on unofficially for years, especially when you are involved with trim-sensitive aircraft, such as small commuter aircraft and helicopters. It wouldn't be unknown for a pilot or load supervisor to make sure to seat a large person as near to C of G as possible and it is alleged that discrete underfloor scales are in service.

regards
Stovepipe

Peregrine

Out of curiosity, does anybody here actually see this happening legally in commercial airlines?

Stovepipe

Why not? everything else that goes onto an aircraft is weighed, why not the self-loading freight?

regards
Stovepipe

donkey balls

Nimrod 7 wrote: »

Out of curiosity, does anybody here actually see this happening legally in commercial airlines?

Nah not really but as Stovepipe mentioned smaller turbo props like ATR etc are more prone to strict W&B fuel up lift/cargo,The bigger aircraft would not have this problem.

Peregrine

Stinicker wrote: »

Basically there is supposed to be a like an average weight per passenger and Pilots use this to calculate the weight of the passengers. However it had deadly consequences when so many passengers were overweight on a flight in the US before.

Air Midwest Flight 5481

Personally I think pilots should pay a much bigger attention to the passengers weight on smaller aircraft like that and charter planes, when carrying soldiers etc. Arrow Air 1285 being a prime example.

basill

Stinicker since you openly admitted your not a pilot and your post is so full of holes and innuendo I would suggest you delete your thesis on weight and balance and aircraft investigation before someone from Ryanair comes along and requests your IP address.

I am sure the relatives of that crashed aircraft would like to know that their loved ones were overweight and that the control reversal was simply a minor issue. Maybe you should drop their lawyers a line with your theory.

LeftBase

basill wrote: »

I am sure the relatives of that crashed aircraft would like to know that their loved ones were overweight and that the control reversal was simply a minor issue. Maybe you should drop their lawyers a line with your theory.

While I agree with 100% with you basill I'm fairly sure the FAA increased the standard passenger weights as a result to data that emerged during the Air Midwest investigation. Overweight passengers was a theory during the investigation and the FAA commissioned a study on passenger weights that found the standard figures they were using were a good bit off the average weight to the American air traveler.

Stinicker

LeftBase wrote: »

While I agree with 100% with you basill I'm fairly sure the FAA increased the standard passenger weights as a result to data that emerged during the Air Midwest investigation. Overweight passengers was a theory during the investigation and the FAA commissioned a study on passenger weights that found the standard figures they were using were a good bit off the average weight to the American air traveler.

According to Air Crash Investigation (tv show) the data was based older average weight figures and were revised upwards after the incident to account for the increased weight of the average american.