A debate has been going on about whether or not obese passengers should be charged by their weight on flights. According to a new survey, many passengers are in favor of the idea.
According to the Daily Mail, a survey conducted this month asked travelers if they would mind being weighed at the airport and four out of ten said it wouldn't bother them.
This ide has caused a lot of controversy as airlines try to figure out how to deal with passengers that take up extra room. More than 30 percent of American adults are obese, so it is an apparent issue.
Some domestic airlines will charge large passengers for an extra seat and some will even get bumped from overcrowded flights.
Ray Martin, Senior Vice President of You Gove, spoke about the study that was conducted by his market research company.
"The airlines are always looking to reduce weight or the cost of carrying it and we're finding that more people don't seem to mind the concept," told NBC.
Some airlines have gone through with charging passengers based on their weight. Samoa's national airline Samoa Air already charges passengers based on the combined weight of their body and their luggage. Fees range from 93 cents to $1.06 per kilogram.
Yet this practice has drawn criticism from Americans, where obesity costs the country $147 billion in medical costs, the Centers for Disease Control notes.
Those in support of equality for the obese find the practice to be particularly unfair.
"If you're going to treat people like freight, then you have to accommodate those people the way freight carriers do," Peggy Howell, spokesman for the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) said. "Freight carriers don't try to fit a big box into a space the size of a 17-inch seat. Are airlines going to reconfigure their planes so you have small, medium and large seats for passengers of different weights? Anything less would be discriminatory."
George Hobica of AirfareWatchdog.com had a more realistic outlook on the idea.
"You'd have to get to the airport two or three hours early; flights would be delayed, and you'd need more staff so it could lead to higher fares. People just think they don't want fat people on planes but it would slow everything down," Hobica said. "And planes on the ground don't make money."
However Hobica supports the practice of charging larger passengers for an extra seat if they're too big for one.
Travelers who took the YouGove survey agreed as 63 percent of respondents said passengers who spill over their seats should have to buy a second ticket.
"People are already comfortable with the two-seat concept. That could be the way for the airlines to move along toward the point where they start weighing people," Martin said.
Despite being against the idea, Hobica said it would have a positive impact on people's health as they might be more motivated to have a healthier body.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
