In a bid to save fuel costs, airlines worldwide are going all out to carry less weight, by redesigning meal packaging, seats, trimming in-flight magazines and even making sugar sachets available only on request, in one case.
"When you add it all up for every flight each year, it does matter," a Virgin Atlantic spokesperson was quoted as saying in the Times of London.
Locally, we've seen weight limits on luggage strictly imposed, with massive per-kilo penalties for those who haven't perfected the art of travelling light.
Low-cost airline Mango's CEO Nico Bezuidenhout has gone as far as introducing a monetary incentive for passengers who check in less than 15kg of luggage - they'll get 10 percent off the cost of a future flight.
Very creative.
But if it's true that every kilogram matters so terribly much, why is it that every "extra" kilogram of luggage is such a big, expensive deal, yet the extra weight that so many passengers carry on their bodies doesn't enter the equation at all?
I can sit next to someone on a plane who weighs three times what I do, who intrudes massively on the seat I've paid for, and yet we are both subjected to the same limits on our luggage. Surely we lighties should be given fare discounts or extra baggage allowance?
Yes, that would lay an airline open to being accused of discriminating against large people, but given that there's a global obesity crisis, they could score social responsibility points by claiming to be doing their bit to stem the crisis.
Just as Unilever did recently when they reduced the fat content of their margarine in response to the hike in the price of edible oil.
So how about it, Nico? If charging a penalty for extra human weight will produce howls of outrage, why not begin by weighing both passenger and luggage together, and offering discounted fares to those with a combined weight of below a certain figure?
Using a body mass index for the humans would arguably be a fairer measure, but that would create logistical nightmares, so average weights for men and women could be used as a compromise yardstick.
This issue is not just about economics, it's about air safety.
In January 2003 an Air Midwest Beech 1900 with 19 passengers aboard failed to gain altitude quickly enough and crashed into an airport hanger during takeoff in Charlotte, North Carolina, killing all passengers and crew. The US's National Transportation Safety Board determined that Air Midwest used "substantially inaccurate weight and balance calculations for company airplanes", which were based on incorrect "average passenger and baggage weights".
Clearly, airlines should know the weight of their passengers, but very few of them ask, so as not to cause offence.
Which is why weighing passengers with their luggage, and recording the combined weight, is a viable option. As it happens, earlier this month, Darren Wright, general manager of Malaysian long-haul budget carrier AirAsia X, told the travel trade magazine Travel Today that the airline was considering charging passengers according to their weight "in a bid to fight rising fuel prices and help Aussies lose weight".
Within days, the airline insisted the comment had been a joke.
The new official word is that the airline is only considering weighing both passenger and luggage in order to determine how much additional cargo could be carried on board, "not for the purpose of increasing individual airfares".
So for now, it looks as if those who spare the jet fuel by not packing on the pounds can't expect any perks - not yet, anyway.
