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Portly Passengers
Err Travel · February 1, 2000

OK, I give. After recently sharing an airline seat – and I mean sharing – with one extremely portly passenger, I must finally weigh in on the issue of flying fatties.

I’m sure that it was more uncomfortable for my corpulent companion than it was for me to be jammed into a mini-seat on a (mercifully) two-hour flight.

His cheeks oozed under the toothpick-sized armrest that separated us (yes, those cheeks) while his rotund abdomen threatened to break free of his seat belt at any moment and come spilling onto my pretzels.

It was a ride that both of us would have just as soon avoided, and we were delighted when we were finally freed from our aluminum confinement.

I bid adieu to my sizable seatmate and thought little of the matter until last week when I was air shipping a package to Scotland. As best as I can figure, for that shipment I paid an amount based on four factors: Distance, dimensions, weight, and delivery time -- the most salient attribute contributing to the cost of shipping the package being its weight.

Because the cost of putting an airplane in the sky and keeping it there until it reaches its destination is directly proportional to the weight of the craft, this makes perfect sense.

Then it hit me like a side of pork.

Why don’t airlines base fares on passenger weight? What could be more reasonable?

Would this be discrimination? Absolutely. The more weight a passenger were to pack on board – whether in his luggage or in his trousers – the more he would pay.

Would this unfair? Absolutely not. It wouldn’t matter if the passenger were brown or white or black or green. It wouldn’t matter if the passenger were a man or a woman or something in between. It wouldn’t matter if the passenger were Muslim or Hindu or Christian or Jew. It wouldn’t matter if the passenger were Filipino or Canadian or African or Eskimo. It wouldn’t matter if the passenger were twenty or forty or eighty or two.

Here’s the formula airlines could use to set their fares:

Ticket price = F + D(WP + ½ WL) + POD + PSLK + PBO where F is a number that reflects a portion of the fixed costs of running an airline (e.g., advertising, telephones, paper clips, fat executive salaries). D is distance. WP is the weight of a passenger and his carry-on bags. WL is the weight of a passenger’s checked luggage. P stands for “penalty” for obnoxious drunks, screaming little brats, and people with BO.

Now the other side of the fare issue. Because weighty passengers would pay more for a ticket, they should receive more space on board – wider seats, more legroom. Again, this only makes sense: Big guys, big fares, big seats; small guys, small fares, small seats.

If you have a better, more fair-minded formula, I’d like to know about it. Send it to me at terry@ticked.com. But please, no letters from the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance or the International Size Acceptance Association.

Don’t write to me about being insensitive to the plight of the pudgy and how my solution to alleviating the flying sardine issue just adds to the embarrassment of those who are gravity challenged.

A weight-based fare is, well, fair, and it isn’t going to reveal anything about our oversized fellow travelers that our eyes aren’t already reporting.

Dr. Terry Riley is a psychologist and travel security authority. His column appears on Wednesdays. He is author of the popular book Travel Can Be Murder. Visit his site at http://www.appliedpsychology.com or e-mail him at terry@ticked.com.