Pay as you weigh flying

Quote: DocZZZ

Come on Paco! Work it's "WEIGH"????

"It's?"

Quote: DocZZZ

Come on Paco! Work it's "WEIGH"????

I was just discussing this problem. I have developed a brain glitch regarding homonyms. I don't know if it is a function of age, or typing on a screen instead of writing on paper.I am not illiterate, and they are never a function of ignorance. Most of the time, I catch them before hitting the SEND or POST button.


It usually strikes at there= their, its= it's, and to= two. I have never done weigh=way before.

I have heard the term Homonym Aphasia which some professional writers complain about, It usually strikes at age 60. It is actually very distressing to me when I started doing it.

Elizabeth Zelvin, a professional writer tells her story

No never. Women don't want to reveal their weight or the weight of their luggage.
Yes, it may be critical on some flights. FAA averages for people and bags are woefully antiquated and some accident reconstructions have turned on weighing the luggage rather than relying on estimates for weight and balance and center of gravity shift based on "average bags".

Fines and surcharges annoy the public but Fattie Discrimination won't help.

Quote: Fleastiff

No never. Women don't want to reveal their weight or the weight of their luggage.

I suppose it won't be pleasant for anyone, but it would give the airline the opportunity to put a few rows of seats in for obese people and make up for lost revenue. Right now they are forced to make a yes/no decision to require people to purchase two seats.


The husband of a 450 pound woman is suing the airlines for $6 million. They flew them to Hungary, and then would not board her for the flight home. She died because she did not get medical treatment for her diabetes in time.

It used to be that in the USA the unwashed masses traveled by bus and the middle class flew.
Then intercity buses pretty much disappeared and municipal buses burdened their customers with everyone from the mildly handicapped to those who really needed to hire a private ambulance. Mechanical delays meant nothing. All buses had to be wheel chair equipped because anything else was this dreaded "discrimination".

With an industry that is already marginal I just don't see airlines being required to fly heavy wheel chair lifts and have large bays for the various handicapped flyers.

Interim solutions might be a declaration:
Noisy brats, Mental cases (adult and child), obese and slow-evacuation handicapped get a limited number of discount tickets but only with a week's prior notice, sort of the way it used to be for vegetarian meals.

Already the rich seem to be traveling by Air Taxi often on a shared basis in a floating fleet.

While this may cost Afa and Sika on their next flight it is IMHO a good thing. We keep hearing stories about peoe squeezed into a seat with the armrest up because of some 300 lb lump next to them. Might be time to "template" people for seats like carry on bags.

I was once on a cattle car 737 flight where the crew was looking for who they could count as kids the weight was that close. They had to put a few bags on the twin flight to leave the gate.

Quote: Fleastiff

Already the rich seem to be traveling by Air Taxi often on a shared basis in a floating fleet.

Possibly not just the rich, but also the business people with no time. These smaller jets with four seats and no toilet are fairly reasonable to charter, especially if you have four people going to one destination and there is no direct flight. You must factor in savings from no hotel rooms, plus time going to inconvenient airports, in addition to employee salaries.



My friend used to work for GEICO which had an office in MD just north of Washington DC, and another main office in Woodbury NY on Long Island. They were known to be the cheapest company in the world (which is why Warren Buffet bought a controlling interest when he was young).

The offices were 230 miles apart by air, but there was no flight into Long Island Mac Arthur (ISP) airport in Long island (at the time). Waiting at an airport in D.C. and flying to La Guardia took so long that they couldn't possibly do a trip without it being overnight. Even GEICO found it cost effective to charter the jet.

It seems that having a toilet in a jet is the big thing when chartering a jet. All micro jets have one seat that can become an emergency toilet, but if you do that in cramped quarters on a business flight (possibly mixed sexes), you are likely to be remembered for that your whole career. So while they all have a decent range but comapnies are reluctant to force their employees to go those distances.

It is 1170 miles from Washington to Dallas where Geico also had a regional office, but they would only fly the distance with all men in the plane. While most people can survive not urinating for 3 hours, there is always the possibility.

Quote: Pacomartin

Possibly not just the rich, but also the business people with no time. These smaller jets with four seats and no toilet are fairly reasonable to charter, especially if you have four people going to one destination and there is no direct flight. You must factor in savings from no hotel rooms, plus time going to inconvenient airports, in addition to employee salaries.

Its not solely a "cost to the person chartering the plane" but the airline's ability to float its inventory at its destination rather than insist the plane return to headquarters for its next taxi run. Planes that are floating around the country at cheap hotel locations for the crew make for cheaper taxis on their next flight and may just be very close by as well.

The charter company only charges for its passenger carrying miles but if the charter company can leave its plane and crew somewhere cheap that often makes the next flight very cheap too.

Blink Airlines is an air taxi service in London. After 5.5 years of service they still only own six very light jets meaning that they can only keep 24 people maximum in air at one time.

"Air Taxi" sounds like something out of a Golden Age Science Fiction story, or something Larry Niven would use (actually that's just what Larry Niven used in his Flatlander series with Gil "the ARM" Hamilton). One thinks of flying cars and an optimistic misunderstanding of what flying entails.