Samoa Air : to charge passengers according to their weight. (BBC report )
Imagine this: next time you book a plane ticket, you might have to pay according to how much you weigh. That's if a controversial proposal circulating the airline community ever becomes mainstream practice.
Earlier this month Samoa Air made headlines for becoming the first carrier to charge passengers according to their weight. The small South Pacific carrier, which flies mostly domestic routes, charges passengers between 2.12 Samoa tala and 2.41 Samoa tala per kilogram, depending on flight length.
Its policy coincided with the publication of a report by Norwegian economist Dr Bharat Bhatta of Sogn og Fjordane University College, that suggests that airlines should charge obese passengers more.
The reasoning behind the so-called "fat tax" is that jet fuel, the price of which has skyrocketed in recent years, comprises the single largest cost for all major airlines. And one of the biggest gas-guzzling factors is in-flight weight. As both jet fuel prices and average weight have increased over the last few decades, airlines are largely stuck paying the price.
As such, the industry is buzzing about whether it can recoup costs by charging passengers according to weight. It's a move that would reward surprise winners – women, families travelling with children, shorter people – and penalise others, including tall men, and of course, obese passengers.
Full article in the link below.
http://www.bbc.com/travel/blog/20130409-should-heavy-travellers-pay-more
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