Finnish airline to weigh passengers before flights

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Finnish airline to weigh passengers before flights

(encrier/Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Add possibly getting weighed to your airport security gripes.

This week, Finnair has been weighing select volunteer passengers at check-in, with their outerwear and luggage on, all for scientific study. At least they got to keep their shoes on. With obesity becoming a global epidemic, the average weight of men and women has increased since 2008, when the European Aviation Safety Agency last reported the average weights, in order to ensure safest calculations for fueling and flying planes.

The last calculations reported men’s weight at 185 pounds and women at 145 pounds and under 12s at 67 pounds, but Finnair wants to make sure they’re still in the right range. Checked baggage stood at 37 pounds, but that number might be lower now with passengers trying to skirt as many fees for checked bags as possible.

The airline isn’t forcing passengers to do their pre-board weigh-in, it’s voluntary, and they’ve gotten 180 people out of a desired 2,000 people already.

Airlines trim seat sizes, weights to boost capacity, reduce fuel costs

A spokesperson told the Independent that Finnair is both safety and data-driven, so they want to “have the best possible data in use in aircraft performance and loading calculations.” The spokesperson said no one’s been bothered by it so far. “People understand the importance," they said.

(Markku Ulander/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

The fact-finding mission is anonymous and will simply be seen by the gate agent recording the figures — and it’s not the first time airlines have asked for passenger weights.

Samoa Air began weighing passenger by weight rather than by person in 2013, the first airline to do so. The airline also created “XL class” for larger passengers.

Similarly, Uzbekistan Airways in 2015 for their own research and Hawaiian Airlines weighed their passengers last year to evenly distribute their weight across the plane.