Finnair, a part of the Oneworld Alliance, will begin weighing passengers and their carry-on luggage, as part of a voluntary program starting on October 31st.
The airline’s hope is to have more accurate data to calculate the balance of their planes. According to a local Finnish news report, the data Finnair currently uses for passenger weight is from a 2009 report from the European Aviation Safety Agency.
The information will be logged anonymously.
Weighing passengers before they fly isn’t unique to Finnair, though. The first time I was weighed on a flight was on a 5-person charter plane from Portland to Coos Bay, Oregon. Most recently, I was weighed before flying from Manila to El Nido in the Philippines and before boarding a helicopter on Kauai.
My fear is that Finnair and potentially other airlines will use this data to charge customers more, but I’m a fan of science and can’t be mad at them for wanting to get the balance of the plane right.
Josh Trips 