Let's make airline tickets equitable!
The huge increase in the cost of fuel that has led some airlines to add fees for the extra weight of baggage underscores the fact that ALL airplanes must have the weight of their entire contents calculated in order to operate within the designed weights and balance of the aircraft.
It is understandable that passengers should pay for the cost of carrying their baggage. Meanwhile, the cost of carrying the combined weight of the passengers is calculated by using an average weight and multiplying this average times the number of passengers. The increased obesity of the general population has caused airlines to increase that assumed average weight factor. This is grossly unfair to the people whose weight is average, or below average. These people are subsidizing the ticket price for the people who are above average weight.
We pay for most of what we purchase based on the quantity of what we are purchasing (gallons of milk, six packs, cartons, dozens, Etc). This is unit pricing.
Why do we accept paying for an airline ticke based on the average of the cost assumed to be encountered by the airline? Why don't the airlines simply apply the weigh-in process being used for baggage to BOTH the baggage AND the passenger? Is that not the most fair thing to do? Have the ticket price set as a cost per pound of both the passenger and the passenger's baggage? This would be a huge benefit for parents when paying for children, for passengers with no chedck-in bags, and so on.
Comparisons of airfares would be the same process that we encounter in the grocery store - - - unit pricing ($/lb).
... View more
