Ryanair To Charge For Fat People!

[No Longer Active]

Ryanair at it again! (as usual)

If your fat, then you pay!

Madness!

http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/news.php?yr=09&month=apr&story=gen-en-220409

[dnoize]

If you look really objectively its not that crazy.

Heavier passengers ----> higher costs.

And since you practically fly for free with the low cost carriers, they have to make money somewhere.

A plane with 100 passenger of 150 kilo's each will use more fuel than one taking 100 passengers of 80 kilo's each.

Ofcourse there will most likely not be many flights with only overweight passengers, but it makes you think.

more weight---more costs....

i once was in a flight where a passenger occupied 2 seats (and im not kidding). Many airlines allready charge 2 seats in these cases.

Companies like ryan air hardly make any money on their flights. Only a few euro's (if at all).
What you pay is for fuel, environmental taxes, security taxes, etc.

What they do make money on is your coffee, tea, beer, sandwich...and yes....charges like these which might look ridiculous at first thought, but maybe are not that crazy if you come to think of it.


Btw. it was ryan airs passengers themselve that came up with this idea !

Stef



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[No Longer Active]

And i guess you do have to be really fat to get the charge.....

Fatter than 'just overweight'..... more like extra obese........

I'm flying with easyjet on friday....they will prob charge me for being too skinny lol.....

[Jackpilot]

How do you explain to passenger A who weighs 80 kg that he has to pay some $50 surcharge because his baggage is a bit over, when at the next counter passenger B, wheighing 150kg gets on board no prob?

[fordgt40]

Jack

Quite right - even more so given the rates that Ryair charge for hold baggage!

As ever, I suspect that this is all about income generation not cost savings. Ryanair have a cynical approach and have been criticised on many occasions by the advertising authorities for misleading communications. Talk about turkeys voting for Xmas!

Regards

David

[dnoize]

How do you explain to passenger A who weighs 80 kg that he has to pay some $50 surcharge because his baggage is a bit over, when at the next counter passenger B, wheighing 150kg gets on board no prob?

Exactly.

I came back here to post exactly that thought, but you beat me to it.


Stef

[Geremy Britton]

Jack and stef do have a point there i have to say! Definately something to think about there when deciding how to implement this.

BTW: Were they having a laugh when a poll answer could be to pay £1 for toilet roll with o'leary's face on it!

Wouldn't like to have a bad cold, or nose bleed, air sickness on one of those flights if that one came into force. They'll be laughing all the way to the bank at our misfortune. It's just something you don't do.

[magicaldr]

Being over 20 stone myself (on and off anyway, I fluctuate between 19.5 / 273 pounds and 20 Stone / 280 Pounds) this is laughable. I wont say I am slim, I have a small spare tyre in there, but equally I am a 54inch chest and heavy build so although a healthy weight is 18 - 19 stone I am not massively overweight either. (The scales keep saying be 14 stone, but I dont want to amputate something)

Peeps rarely believe I am the weight I am, and its a pain for the planes where it does count. (I have to fly the 4 seaters and have never been gliding) So if they tried to weigh me on the way to the plane I would have something to say on the matter.

Looks like they haven't thought this through (whats new). After all I am sure you will hit human rights issues if you start trying to calculate peoples BMI's at the airport. Not to mention their idea of different allowances for men and women. Ok so a 'healthy' weight is different for the 2, but so what. You can't discriminate based on sex (although sadly you can call people fat and do what you like)

[Matt Olieman]

I guess I won't be able to afford to fly with them, unless there is a cap. LMAO

Matt Olieman

[ak49er]

Make it fair, just like Air Cargo rates, if you are over sized but under weight they will charge you "Cube Dims" or Cubic Dimensions.

Pay by the pound I say, after all it takes more jet Fuel to push a larger person through the air than me , all things being realtive.

Southwest tried this a few years ago, i wonder how they fared?

[Michael Carter]

Twenty years from now (maybe less) there will be several rows of seats that are wider, with more seat pitch, and will be located within the normal CG limits of the loaded aircraft for large people.

It will be twin-abreast seating in these rows instead of the current three-abreast seating.

Mark my words. It will happen.

Either that or they'll just put you in a cargo container. :mrgreen:

[No Longer Active]

Southwest tried this a few years ago, i wonder how they fared?

True Fact:

It's funny that, because it was Michael O'Leary that based Ryanair on SouthWest Airlines, basically the success of Ryanair is only because of Mr Herb Kelleher himself, take Herb out of the equation and there simply wouldn't of been no Ryanair (or successful Ryanair anyway). Im sure if it didn't work for SouthWest it wouldnt work for Ryanair.

But then again according to the European Union Official Statistics it is proven that America is the most obese nation, and that in Europe now more than 50% of people are now overweight or obese. It seem's that there is an 'overweight market' that airlines are cashing in on, Ryanair being one of them airlines. If it wasn't for the Ryanair competition to find the airline's next best discressionary charge then i honestly think that this was in the bag anyway!

If statically proven by the EU official statistics that America is the most obese nation, then i could image how this must of affected Americas budget airline SouthWest, did people just find another airline that didnt charge for 'body weight' and sales went down? probably. Personally if Ryanair does it, I think it will be a bad move too, and will follow suit of what SouthWest did. It will never work. This maybe good news for EasyJet / AerLingus and BA who are RA's main competitors.

[magicaldr]

Only fair way (barring people who need 2 seats to physically fit in the aircraft) would be to charge based on total flight weight, including luggage. That way a heavy person could carry less luggage, which at least maintains the reasonable 'it costs more fuel' argument.

Otherwise its a glaring money grabbing scheme playing on prejudice and ability to laugh at 'fat' people. Personally I don't agree with it anyway, but hey these guys charge to use the loo.

Maybe on day they will sell a 'gold' ticket that costs same as everyone else's and lets you fly like a human being. ;)

[spiro]

hi all it sounds funny but i belive there is a reason for thatif any one remebers in 2005 a beech aircraft in the us crashed killing all i dont remember were but the cause was of over weight because of pepoleover weight the pilots cauculations were ok i am not saying that is the reason but it dose sound abit hevey for hevey pepole

[BHawthorne]

Think of it just as a surcharge for extra carry-on baggage. :lol: