Is someone being overweight my fault? Should I be made to pay extra to ensure that there is enough fuel in the plane to transport such people to our destination?
The other day I was at the airport in Bangkok, checking in my luggage for a short domestic flight north to Chiang Rai. After handling my piece, the pleasant, pretty lady smiled and informed me it was too big for her, and she would not put it in for me. I was reeling and stunned; I had never had this problem before I told her. Her grin broadened, revealing perfect teeth stained with red lipstick.’Your luggage weighs 50 ponds sir and the limit is 44 pounds.’ (That’s 6 pounds, remember this as it is a pivotal fact in what I will go on to say). I pulled every face I could at her in order to communicate my shock and displeasure. She returned my facial contortions with an ever expanding grin and eye lashes that fluttered so frantically they might have flown off with her face.
In short the grinning eyelashes out lasted me and taxed me 1,000 baht ($30 USD approx). As I turned to leave the checking in booth everything went black. Momentarily thinking that I had passed out, I was brought back to reality as an enormous individual plowed past me to check in. The individual placed their bag on the scales and happily for them it weighed 40 pounds. (My bag 50 pounds their bag 40 pounds, 10 pound difference, you’ve probably guessed where I’m going with this).
This person would have to have weighed 300 lbs and add on their baggage, a cumulative 340 lbs. My luggage and I came to 250 lbs, yet I had to pay the excess. In effect what I was being asked to do was to subsidize this persons poor diet and eating habits. How can an airline be such pedants about my extra 6 lbs and let a person who clearly weighs more than 100 lbs more than me on the plane at no extra cost? Ironically if I’d had the time to have eaten my luggage I would have not had to pay anything, even though the flight would have to carry the weight, because it was a part of my own physical mass it would have been fine.
In short I got back home and some quick research has uncovered that there are airlines considering charging extra for overweight people. Is this fair?
http://www.businessinsider.com/will-big-airlines-charge-fat-passengers-extra-2013-4
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