Wichita Business Daily

The next thing airlines will start charging by the weight and body fat of the passengers.?

Yes, take your shoes and socks off. Step on our "United Airlines" scale. Five pounds will be added to your weight if you have a bag of potato chips and a can of sugar water. Welcome, to the Friendly Skies!

Public Comments

1. what? have you been charged for two seats because your cant fit into one? no disrespect if so....
2. I wish that was happening NOW. If you're so big, you can't fit into a regular seat, or your enormous bulk is spilling over into the seat next to you, you should be charged for two seats. I've been on flights like that and it's fully understandable.
3. The next thing you know, they will ask you to empty your bowel and your bladder before you board a flight or else you are charged with a $20 extra fee ! When oil prices hit $200 a barrel, this is not an unrealistic scenerio. I personally will stop flying before it comes to that though!
4. Weight is a critical variable in air travel, and at one time all passengers were weighed during the boarding process in order to get an accurate weight for take-off. Today, the FAA uses an "average" weight to roughly calculate aircraft weight that may or may not be accurate, depending on the passenger mix. A person who weighs twice the average weight costs twice as much to transport, so charging for air travel by weight would be very fair, but probably not politically correct.