Finland's national carrier Finnair is asking passengers to be weighed voluntarily and anonymously so that it can update their standard weight figures.

Almost everything that gets onto a commercial plane — fuel, checked-in baggage, cargo and meals — is weighed. For passengers and their cabin bags, most airlines use average data.

But Finland’s national carrier Finnair said Friday that it started asking passengers this week voluntarily and anonymously hop onto a scale with their hand luggage at the country’s main airport in Helsinki, the airline said Friday. The aim is to get their own figures.

“We will need data for both winter season and for summer season — in winter season people typically have heavier clothing, which impacts weights,” Finnair spokeswoman Päivyt Tallqvist told The Associated Press, adding that the survey would last until May.

Passengers boarding onto European and long-haul flights won’t be “penalized for their weight,” and “the numbers are kept discreet, away from prying eyes,” she added.

  • Everythingispenguins@lemmy.world
    2·
    1 year ago

    No you are you are totally right you could analyze each flight that way and they do to a certain extent. All commercial aircraft do have a switch called the Weigh On Wheel sensor, which detects when the gear is loaded. I don’t know the sensitivity of them though. I do know that some planes the WOW is just a on/off switch. Some do use load sensors. I would expect them to have a pretty low resolution. So to do that they would need load cells that are both sensitive and extremely high weight. Plus you can’t just swap parts on a plane. Every part is certified and has all the government red tape. Additionally you can’t really feel it in the passenger cabin but planes move around a lot during loading and in loading. Getting a good data point may be difficult at best. If it is windy forget about it.

    Also you would still need to seat people in the class they paid for. So say all the big people are in first. I don’t know I am speculating a bit at this point.

    Fundamentally you are correct. I just don’t think that it would be as easy/possible to implement fleet wide. Part of what makes flying safe is the technology of commercial planes is always a generation or two old. So you always have to ask yourself if this could happen ~20 years ago.

    Having said all that, discount airlines would love to charge by the pound of flesh. I bet the only reason they don’t is optics.