On my way to LA from Newark, I sat next to a woman who must have weighed 350 pounds. I had to sit sideways in my seat to accommodate her. Why should I have to do this!
As we took off, I wondered, With all the overweight people on this plane, will we be able to stay in the air?
Then it hit me that the reason airlines are charging for checked bags is that they are too chicken to ask the overweight to pay for their poundage. After all, the airlines claim that this is to offset fuel costs, and most Americans are carrying around a lot more extra weight than the weight of my checked bags. Just think that my checked bag maybe weighs 40 pounds, but many Americans are way over 40 pounds overweight.
Helene told me that in all her years with Air Canada, only twice did she charge a passenger for two seats--and it was the same passenger.
What would be so hard about every passenger standing on a scale when they checked in. Their weight would only be displayed to the clerk, so that information would remain private. Then they could do one of the following to mitigate the increased fuel costs of these hefty passengers:
* Set a cap for female and male weight, perhaps 160 for women and 190 for men. Anyone over that weight would pay a surcharge. Passengers who were grossly overweight, perhaps 280 and up, would have to buy two seats.
* Have a graduated fee schedule, say, $25 for up to 25 pounds overweight, $35 for up to 50, and so on.
* Charge $1 per pound of excess weight.
* Those people who are, say, 100 pounds or lighter would receive a break on their ticket.
* The excess-weight surcharge would not be based on body mass index. True, body builders and other athletes might be more than the cut-off weight and, true, their weight would be due to muscle not to fat, but if the surcharge is about excess weight, it doesn't matter whether the weight takes the form of fat or muscle.
Instead of everyone, fat and skinny and in between, having to pay for the excesses of some, why not make those who are responsible for the extra weight pay? This might have the added benefit of giving people an incentive to lose weight. Money is a great incentive.
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- Perhaps my friend Mark summed me up best when he called me "a mystical grammarian." I am quite a mix--otherworldly, ethereal and in touch with "the beyond," yet prone to being very precise and logical, when need be. Romantic in the big-canvas meaning of the word, I see the world as an adventure, as a love poem, as a realm of beauty and wonder.
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3 comments:
spoken like a skinny person!
umm... yikes! since when did 160lbs make a female heavy?
besides, you have to think about people. these are PEOPLE, not cattle. you can't just make them stand oh scales before entering an aircraft. that would be madly embarrassing at the very least, and inhuman at the most.
I could see making people over 280 pay for two seats... and but publicly embarrassing them by requesting them to pay extra per overweight pound is dehumanizing.
what about pregnant moms? and the also let small babies fly free if they sit a parent's lap. do we weigh them too?
the logistics of this are an absolute nightmare. perhaps they should only charge people a flat seat rate and them charge them above and beyond for every pd they weigh? (yeah... no.)
If the airlines are supposedly charging a baggage fee to offset increased fuel costs, it sure would make more sense to charge the people who are adding the weight to the plane. That only seems fair. And I once weighed as much as 174, but then I just refocused my life, away from excessive eating and onto other pleasures and interests. It is not difficult to eat healthy and keep your weight down. It's mind over matter, as most things in life are.
Passengers, unfortunately, are already treated like cattle. Every single time I go through airport security, for example, I have to get patted down and taken into a room where I have to pull up my shirt and pull down my pants so that the curious TSA personnel can ogle my insulin pump and dialysis tubing. Then all my luggage is rummaged through and wiped for drugs. This is definitely cattle treatment.
And the thing is, if this whole terrorism thing was real, it might be justified. But since the US govt was behind 9/11 as an excuse to subvert the Constitution, control the populace, and invade Afghanistan and Iraq, this cattle treatment is unjustified. Excess weight, however, and the added fuel costs are a real thing.
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