A European airline is weighing passengers before flights
Finnair wants to stick thousands of its passengers on the scales on before flights, along with their luggage
A EUROPEAN airline has announced plans to weigh travellers before they board a plane.
Finnair wants to stick thousands of its passengers on the scales on their flight, along with their luggage.
The airline isn’t planning on penalising anyone they consider overweight though.
Instead – they’re doing it to cut operating costs.
By working out a more exact weight and balance of the aircraft, Finnair will be able to streamline their operating costs when it comes to fuelling the planes.
Until now, the airline has been replying on estimates from the European Aviation Safety Agency that were made eight years ago.
Finnair is starting off by weighing 180 passengers over a two-day period, and are then hoping to extend the study until spring next year.
They are expecting to weigh at least 2,000 passengers between now and 2018 on voluntary basis, to get data from different routes and different seasons.
Päivyt Tallqvist, communications director at Finnair told Sun Online Travel: "Finnair is conducting a study to determine whether we have accurate data on passenger standard weights.
"We want to ensure we have the best possible data in use in aircraft performance and loading calculations."
They added: "The weighing is purely voluntary and anonymous, and only the customer service agent sees the weighing result."
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According to Finnair bosses, the weight of their passengers changes a huge amount between summer and winter because of the extreme difference in temperature.
The average weight of passengers also differs from the European average - according to stats from the European Aviation Safety Agency, the average male passenger weighed 13 stone 3 lbs and flew with a carry-on luggage of 1 stone.
The average female passenger weighed 10 stone 4 lbs and flew with a carry-on luggage of 11lbs.
However, the average Finnish man weighs 13 stone and 5lbs and the average Finnish woman weighs 11 stone.
