from the who-ate-all-the-pies,-who-ate-all-the-pies? dept.
A New Zealand airline is weighing passengers before boarding as part of a month-long survey to gauge the overall weight of the plane. Air New Zealand says it hopes to weigh 10,000 passengers to help pilots better understand the weight and balance of the plane before takeoff.
The weigh-in will be voluntary the airline said in a press release, and will allow Air New Zealand to create better fuel efficiency based on the findings. Airlines have historically implemented a maximum weight permitted for carry-on and checked bags and have taken into account the number of passengers, food and drinks on board, and the fuel needed to get to the destination.
"It's a regulatory requirement for us to know the weight of everything that goes on the aircraft and there's a good reason for that," Alastair James, a load control improvement specialist for the airline said on TODAY. He said in a separate press release that knowing the overall weight of planes during flight is "essential to the safe and efficient operation of the aircraft."
But some American passengers remain uncertain about being weighed in public, with one passenger telling TODAY, "I think that's a violation of privacy." Another passenger said, "When I go to the doctor, I don't even look at the scale, so I don't want that out there in public."
The nation's Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) requires airlines to estimate the weight of passengers with one of two options. The first option is to weigh in passengers, as Air New Zealand is doing, or accept the standard weight set by the CAA which is 190 pounds for those 13 years of age and older. The standard weight was last reviewed in 2021 but hasn't been increased since 2004 when the aviation authority increased the average weight from 170 pounds to the current estimated weight.
[...] Air New Zealand's survey will begin this week and will run through July 2, and Alastair James, a load control improvement specialist for the airline, said in the press release, "We know stepping on the scales can be daunting. We want to reassure our customers there is no visible display anywhere. No one can see your weight – not even us! It's completely anonymous." He added, "By weighing in, you'll be helping us fly safely and efficiently every time."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday June 01 2023, @02:19AM (12 children)
Aircraft are machines that lift mass off the ground. The pilot must know the mass of the stuff onboard to calculate the amount of fuel needed and fly the plane with the right parameters. And the mass inside the plane should be distributed equally to maintain the center of mass. It's totally legit to ask someone onboard an airplane to disclose their weight!
It just so happens that the airlines have been using average weight values multiplied by the number of people, so the passengers never had to be weighted. But those average weight aren't accurate anymore: they were valid decades ago when people weren't as fat as today. But people's belt size have steadily increased, so it's worth doing a new survey to adjust those averages.
What next? They won't tell the shoe store their shoe size because it's a privacy violation?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday June 01 2023, @02:24AM (5 children)
Also, I'll tell you something else that grinds my gear: when I bring a piece of luggage that's 1 lb over the weight limit, I'm overcharged $50. But the lardass in the check-in line behind me who's 100 lbs overweight with his tiny carry-on isn't.
Yeah... I'm all for a little privacy violation.
(Score: 5, Touché) by EJ on Thursday June 01 2023, @03:40AM (3 children)
Who are you to say they're 100 lbs overweight? Maybe they identify as 100 lbs UNDERweight, but you didn't even CONSIDER that!
(Score: 5, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday June 01 2023, @04:52AM (2 children)
Yeah okay. I'm all for equal treatment. So I'll tell you what: when I bring 100 lbs of luggage, I shouldn't be charged extra. Because I identify as a luggage rack. How about that for equality?
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday June 01 2023, @12:09PM
In general, these "I identify as" jokes are becoming tedious. But every now and then, one strikes me as quite funny. "I identify as a luggage rack" hit the bell. Made me laugh out loud, not just type LOL. Congratulations.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday June 01 2023, @02:10PM
Especially if you wear a SCOTTeVEST [travelhag.com] -- and there's a 40-pocket model too. Just don't overdo it [todayifoundout.com] by identifying yourself as a closet rod or mannequin.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday June 01 2023, @06:21PM
Was he seated in the overhead bin above you?
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(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 01 2023, @02:29AM
So, confiscate those oversized belts!
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Thursday June 01 2023, @09:49AM (4 children)
I surmise that the weight measurement is not coupled to the passenger's identity. That would be a privacy violation indeed. Instead, it seems just that moment of embarrassment when the passenger's weight is revealed leads to upsetting reactions. Indeed, even this could be avoided by not showing the measurement, just acknowledging the measurement with a beep. Still, some retards would complain.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Mykl on Thursday June 01 2023, @12:13PM (1 child)
Can't we at least have it beep louder or deeper according to weight? Give us some entertainment, for goodness sake!
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday June 01 2023, @02:13PM
I'm sure someone is going to use artificial intelligence [sciencedirect.com] to estimate that. Then you just need to wire it up to a speaker!
(Score: 3, Informative) by hendrikboom on Thursday June 01 2023, @12:13PM (1 child)
You are correct. From the summary:
(Score: 4, Funny) by krishnoid on Thursday June 01 2023, @02:23PM
Until they announce at the end, "Our fatsack [youtu.be] algorithm has determined that we need to remove three passengers, with weights exactly x, y, and z. *You* know who you are. Please come up to the front with a hangdog expression on your face and we'll find you a new flight, and give you a voucher for all the celery you can eat until it departs."
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Thursday June 01 2023, @06:46AM
For now.
But I have this hunch that the reason is to find out whether it's worth fighting the fight that you can charge passengers per pound of lard they stuff into their planes.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday June 01 2023, @07:50AM (1 child)
I do think personal privacy is important, but the unfortunate reality is that mass is critical to physics, physics cannot be ignored, and there's a very likely reason why this passenger said "When I go to the doctor, I don't even look at the scale, so I don't want that out there in public." That reason being why this measurement is being done in the first place. Even if no one says it, even if some people are in denial, we all know why.
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(Score: 2) by quixote on Friday June 02 2023, @04:13AM
There are so many hangups about weight it's beyond absurd. I was on a jury once about a drunk driving case with a borderline reading. The woman involved was tall, not slim and not fat. The court needed to know her weight because, duh, measured blood alcohol level translates to more alcohol per unit of body mass if that's a smaller mass. She could barely bring herself to speak. And when she did, she lowballed it so much she crossed the line to (a tiny amount) over the limit.
If people would rather have a criminal record and a big jump in insurance costs than say their weight, a mere airline doesn't stand a chance.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Thursday June 01 2023, @11:37AM (5 children)
With all the wacky technology we have these days, wouldn't it be simpler, quicker, and less error prone to just, after loading everything, somehow way the airplane?
I'm sure a smart phone could do that, apparently they can do everything.
Oh, I see, they are just looking for a way to intentionally inconvenience customers. Probably so they can get some other data or some way to charge them more money. Let me guess, they can speed up check in by presenting a smart phone (buy one, beter yet buy a zillion) with airport app that contains their weight and marketing data. Genius.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Thursday June 01 2023, @12:15PM (1 child)
Those are going to be some really expensive scales that you'll have to embed into the tarmac, for very little benefit. Much easier to weigh each passenger (this could be accomplished at the same time as the security check).
(Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Thursday June 01 2023, @02:17PM
And then serve personalized ads! Ask your doctor if Ozempic or Wegovy [uchealth.org] is right for you. Or maybe Haagen-Dazs.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday June 01 2023, @12:18PM
Maybe sometime in the future they'll decide to do this.
But the current survey is anonymous. Pretty hard to charge a passenger extra under the circumstance.
(Score: 2) by Zinho on Thursday June 01 2023, @02:41PM (1 child)
Off the top of my head I can think of two low-cost and fairly reliable ways to accomplish this:
1) Extensometer parallel to the spring in the aircraft's landing gear. Pros: simple, easy to calibrate, fairly low-cost (depending on accuracy needed). Cons: often delicate, would need to be attached to the part of the plane most likely to encounter debris, precision may be low if the change in spring length between loaded vs unloaded state is too small, may be affected by temperature changes
2) Strain gauges attached to a load-bearing part of the suspension. Pros: mostly solid-state (can be incased in protective coating for durability), can be made insensitive to temperature, easy to calibrate, can be low-cost (depending on the design), gauge signal can be amplified as needed to provide desired precision. Cons: turning the plane's structural members into a load cell means modifying already-installed and FAA-approved equipment on a per-plane basis (not a modular/drop-in solution).
Both of these solutions require altering the airplane in some way, which is guaranteed to raise regulatory eyebrows. And "low-cost" for a 1-off hobby project is quite different from a deployable product for the airline industry intended to scale to an entire airline fleet. We're still feeling the effects of COVID's supply chain disruptions.
It would be neat if the manufacturers would incorporate a feature like this into their airplane designs; installed at time of manufacture the components could be planned for as part of the manufacturing run. I imagine that being able to give a readout to the pilot of the plane's weight distribution before it leaves the ground would be a potential selling point.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 01 2023, @10:19PM
The web has hints that some commercial aircraft have been built with scales internal to the landing gear...but I couldn't find a list of models where this was an option, so it may be something that was rare, or an internet rumor?
On at least one flight (smaller commuter jet), a number of people were asked to move from the rear to the front to adjust the center of gravity of the plane (I had to change seat). It was years ago, but I think I asked how they knew and the answer was built-in scales (so I'm adding to the rumor...)
There is no question that aircraft scales exist, both platform (roll the plane onto the scales) and as part of a jack, used for aircraft maintenance. Several pages on these scales popped right up.
You might be amused by: https://www.sawe.org/about/history [sawe.org]
It's not a joke, I've corresponded with one of the members of this engineering society. They manage to discuss a lot more than just the sum of moments and the calculation of CG location.