Airlines mull weighing passengers at gates
for certain flights due to heavy loads
BizPac Review,
by
Jon Dougherty
Original Article
Posted By: Imright,
5/18/2021 10:45:35 AM
U.S. airlines may begin weighing passengers at gates for flights involving smaller aircraft in order to comply with new Federal Aviation Administration rules aimed at addressing the reality that Americans are getting fatter, according to an industry website.“For safety reasons, carriers need to calculate an aircraft’s weight and balance, and it has to be within allowable limits for the plane,” View From The Wing reported last week. “However the assumptions they’ve been using for passengers are outdated. Americans are getting fatter, and the federal government wants airlines to find out how much fatter their passengers have gotten, at least for smaller aircraft.”
Reply 1 - Posted by:
volksford 5/18/2021 10:51:07 AM (No. 789363)
Would someone please show me the statistics on plane crashes due to overweight passengers ? This is more nanny state bull crap.
15 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
southernboy 5/18/2021 10:58:44 AM (No. 789377)
Just wait until some 350 lb. Black woman is refused her reserved seat because she is too fat!
20 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
seamusm 5/18/2021 11:05:24 AM (No. 789388)
#1. This isn't really a safety issue. This is more related to income from underbelly shipping in addition to livestock, I mean passengers.
12 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Laotzu 5/18/2021 11:09:16 AM (No. 789395)
Makes too much sense to know your exact cargo weight and it offends Black Americans. Will never happen.
10 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
bad-hair 5/18/2021 11:10:09 AM (No. 789396)
Doesn't really matter how much they weight. It might matter about where they are seated. Biggest ones over the wing.
4 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
TJ54 5/18/2021 11:31:20 AM (No. 789439)
Blobs have feelings too!
5 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
RuckusTom 5/18/2021 11:43:23 AM (No. 789452)
Fine by me. Anything to keep fatty sitting next to me and sloshing over into my seat.
9 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
hershey 5/18/2021 11:47:19 AM (No. 789457)
Just put the aircraft on a scale...when it tips over stop loading...
7 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
DVC 5/18/2021 11:54:31 AM (No. 789470)
Not true, #1. There have been multiple airline crashes due to overweight or more commonly, out of center of gravity. The second is most common on these new very small airliners. Aircraft MUST be relatively evenly balanced over the wing, something like a giant teeter-totter. Too much forward or aft and the controls cannot adjust, and the pilots can't control the aircraft.
And add in the massive (pun intended) increase of 350 lb+ folks who literally weigh twice what an "FAA standard passenger" weighs. One or two of these out of 200 or 250 passengers will be OK. Two or three out of 20 passengers.....could be disaster.
For example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Midwest_Flight_5481
This was overwieght due to unusually heavy baggage, but it can be the same with
unusually heavy passengers. When the total number of passengers is only 20 or so, two or three
ultra heavy passengers, especially if they sit in the back rows, can make the aircraft uncontrollable,
as it did in the Air Midwest case above. A friend was an Air Midwest captain and instructor
and pointed out this crash to me as an example of out of CG loading that is possible.
And the Arrow Air charter crash at Gander Newfoundland in the middle 80s, a DC-8. 100% US Army troops returning from overseas, the charter airline used the "FAA standard" of 175 lbs, which used to work in a roughly 50-50 male female passenger list. On guy at 225 to 250, offset with a woman at 110-135. With 100% young military conditioned men, and with lots of their gear, meaning unusually heavy baggage, too, They were later estimated to be more like 225 avg or more. The aircraft was at least 8,000 lbs overweight. There were other factors that day, but the overweight was the key factor. This accident unfortunately attracted a bunch of conspiracy theorists who imagined that there was a bomb on board, mostly because it was a military charter flight. No credible evidence of a bomb was ever found, but they clouded things with the help of a stupid media.
7 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
Thos Weatherby 5/18/2021 11:54:40 AM (No. 789471)
Why don't they just give every passenger a strong laxative and 30 minutes in the restroom.
3 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
Clinger 5/18/2021 11:56:51 AM (No. 789478)
On a flight from Durango Colorado to Farmington New Mexico I was asked to relocate my ample backside toward the front if the small plane so we stood a chance of getting airborne. I was probably about 220lbs at the time. We didn't go over the mountains but weaved our way around them.
Golly does that mean the chunky monkeys get to sit in first class?
Wow, I didn't even mean for that to be racial, but I'm going to leave it even though I see how some might construe it as such, I'm just so appalled by the need to walk on egg shells. .
7 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
downnout 5/18/2021 12:07:17 PM (No. 789490)
On smaller planes it makes some sense.
4 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
paral04 5/18/2021 12:15:11 PM (No. 789496)
It is time they did. Back in the early 60's and before, they airlines weighed passengers and their luggage and it the total was over a certain amount you paid the charges. Today, a thin person with a slightly overweight bag pays a fee. A grossly obese person with a bag under the limit pays nothing. The latter causes higher fuel costs and an uncomfortable seat companion but gets away Scot free. Time this was fixed,
10 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
Geoman 5/18/2021 1:11:55 PM (No. 789552)
Agree with #9, especially for the RJs, the smaller regional jets used for smaller market point-to-point service, often replacing the prop-driven Saabs and ATRs. As a multi-rated pilot, including an ATP certificate, I can assure #5 that both weight and balance matter with regard to flight safety, although some aircraft, like the narrow-body 757, with its overpowered high-bypass engines producing a high thrust-to-weight ratio have less of an issue, configured for less than 240 passengers but notice, I didn't call you an idiot like you called your fellow posters on a vaccine thread yesterday. We have historically tended to be amiable in our disagreements and avoid name calling, which is refreshing for an Internet forum.
4 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
farmwife 5/18/2021 1:55:53 PM (No. 789597)
Maybe the airlines should stop trying to cram as many seats into their planes as they possibly can.
5 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
BigGeorgeTX 5/18/2021 2:09:01 PM (No. 789604)
So??? They already treat passengers like cattle, to begin with. Abuse the passengers, and get paid to do it. What a country!
6 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
MickTurn 5/18/2021 4:36:29 PM (No. 789761)
Helium underwear for sale, cheap!
2 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
udanja99 5/18/2021 7:03:30 PM (No. 789879)
I’ve long thought that any passenger who needs a seat belt extender should be made to purchase 2 seats. Not fair you say? What’s fair about someone bulging over into my seat? Maybe I should be able to ask them to pay for part of my seat if they are going to push me halfway out of it.
2 people like this.
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