Air New Zealand Starts Weighing Passengers for More Efficient Fuel Use: What Other Airlines Think

For the second year in a row, Air New Zealand has started weighing passengers before departure. Widerøe says the move is “interesting”.

Soon you won’t need to be an astrologer to spot the scale in the street. At least not if you’re flying with Air New Zealand.

Tuesday announced the company that they will ask their passengers to weigh themselves before international flights. This is how they will find out how much the average flight passenger actually weighs. In the long term, it should enable the company to use fuel more efficiently on flights.

But breathe with (and let out) your stomach: It is completely voluntary to weigh yourself, the company states. The scale is also not shown to anyone or linked to you as a passenger.

“We weigh everything that goes on board the plane, from the cargo to the meals to the luggage,” the company writes in the press release. They also offer comforting words to the passengers:

“We know that stepping on a scale can be intimidating,” they write. “No one can see your weight, not even us!”, they add.

Initially, the measure will only apply to passengers flying internationally from AucklandAucklandNew Zealand’s largest city. airport until 2 July. But can this measure take off? And if so, does it reach the street at Gardermoen? The Norwegian airlines keep their doors open.

Widerøe: “Has something going for it”

– We have no plans to start weighing our passengers, reassures Widerøe’s communications manager Catharina Solli.

Men:

– With that said, we cannot rule out that something will happen sometime in the future.

Because the measure from Air New Zealand has something going for it, says Solli. “No doubt about it,” she adds. Because everything is about weight and balance in an aircraft, both in the cabin, the hold and the fuel tank. This is why this is an interesting measure, she says.

– It is the total weight that is the focus here, not the individual passenger’s weight. And it is like that if you are going to travel longer distances, you need more fuel, says Solli.

Today, all passengers must fill in whether they are male or female. The reason? So the airline can calculate your weight using standardized models. This way they can better calculate how much fuel they can take with them.

As is customary in the airline industry, Solli gives a demonstration: When Widerøe flies directly between Oslo and Lofoten, they fly with their smallest aircraft of 39 seats. Then they block off two seats for sale.

– We do that so we can fill up with extra fuel, says Solli.

We have to Widerøe. What does Norwegian think?

Norwegian takes a more conventional approach

– It is an unconventional climate measure, says communications advisor Anna-Lena Nordling in Norwegian.

One of the country’s largest airlines says it has no plans to ask passengers to stand on the scale before takeoff. But Nordling also adds that they “can never rule anything out”.

– We do not have this type of plan. There are other things we look at when it comes to cutting emissions and saving fuel. When it comes to weight, we would rather ask people to pack lighter and think about what they take with them, she says.

Other airlines have thought far more creatively to cut weight and save fuel and other materials.

Ask passengers to empty their bladders

Among other things, Air New Zealand also weighed its passengers last year, but then only on flights within the country. In another Pacific island nation, an even more unusual move was taken.

In 2009, the Japanese airline All Nippon Airways (ANA) requested that all passengers go to the bathroom before boarding the plane. It should make the plane lighter, and the consumption of fuel less. American ABC calculate it: One urinary bladder can hold between 4-500 ml of fluid. That means a good half a kilo in weight. With 216 passengers on a Boeing 767, the combined urine can weigh over 100 kilograms.

Other ways to better control what comes on and off the plane have also been announced.

Last year, the news came that the aircraft manufacturer Airbus will start to count the dobe searches to the passengers in their newest aircraft. According to the company to find out when soap and toilet paper need to be refilled.

In January wrote The Atlantic that the US public health institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), wants to analyze the sewage from airplanes. The reason? Finding out if new variants of the coronavirus are hiding among the passengers.