The airline industry is being squeezed yet again, but this time it is by vastly differing passenger views, economics and political correctness over the issue of overweight travellers.
The airline industry is being squeezed yet again, but this time it is by vastly differing passenger views, economics and political correctness over the issue of overweight travellers.
What was once a minor economic and political problem is developing rapidly into a major headache, with significant ramifications for airline PR departments, airline bottom lines, and for aircraft manufacturers.
In 2000, the American Journal of Preventative Medicine estimated that the increasing weight of passengers was costing US airlines $366 million a year for the additional 300 million gallons of fuel required to lift the extra kilos. Six years later with fuel up 145 per cent, that cost has ballooned to $900 million.
So has the weight of passengers – and not just in the US. The World Heath Organization states that today, more people – 1.7 billion – are overfed than malnourished, and the number is increasing at an alarming rate.
Complaints from travellers forced to sit next to obese passengers is also increasing. In 2002, Virgin Atlantic Airways paid $32,500 to an English passenger who claimed that she suffered a blood clot in her chest, torn leg muscles and acute sciatica after sitting next to a grossly overweight passenger from London to Los Angeles.
During the 1990s, the average weight of Americans jumped by 4.5kg, according to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Between 1990 and 2002, the number of adults who were either overweight (a body mass index above 25) or obese (BMI above 30) climbed from 56 per cent to 65 per cent of the population. In fact, investigation into the January 2003 fatal crash of a turboprop flight revealed that US Federal Aviation Authority’s (FAA) passenger weighting figures were a bit on the light side. In August 2005, the agency lifted the male and female passenger weights by about 7kg.
And weight’s not just an issue in the US. The Australasian Society for the Study of Obesity has also revealed that the lean, athletic, bronzed Aussie is a myth, with research showing that more than half of all Australian women (52 per cent) and two-thirds of men (67 per cent) are overweight or obese. The prevalence of obesity in Australia has more than doubled in the past 20 years, and worse, the rate of childhood obesity is one of the highest among developed nations with 25 per cent of children currently overweight or obese.
And in China, obesity is increasing at a faster rate than in the US, with 15 per cent of men and 16 per cent of women said to be overweight. In cities, where the population tends to be more affluent and thus better fed, that percentile rises considerably – to around 33 per cent in Beijing, for example.
The numbers are similar across most of the globe; and not only are people putting on weight, they also are growing in stature.
According to RW Howard’s Interrelating Broad Population Trends, the world’s population grew by an average height of seven centimetres from 1945 to 2000 due to better nutrition and health.
In Australia, that growth was put into better context by Stephen Cauchi’s article of April 12, 2004 in The Age in which he found that: “In 1913, according to AFL records, Fitzroy and Collingwood played a semi-final and both teams on average were 175 centimetres and their ruckmen about eight centimetres taller.” According to the AFL records, when the two teams met in April 2004, the average was 186cm, and the shortest player on each list was three centimetres taller than the average height of 1913. Further, Cauchi pointed out: “a contemporary midfielder such as Michael Voss [or Chris Judd] would be first ruck in the midget teams of a century ago.”
Those weight and height gains prompted the British Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to commission a review of seat size and spacing in 1999. Although the report focused on safety issues related to the ability to evacuate tightly packed aircraft quickly and safely, the report by ICE Ergonomics Ltd also found that: “The current widths of typical economy class seats, and in particular the distances between the two armrests, are totally inadequate to accommodate larger bodied passengers”.
CAA has recommended increases in pitch and width, but that is in limbo since the responsibility was assumed in September 2003 by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), which is now conducting a new review.
US-based Southwest Airlines may be the only carrier that has a clear policy on its web site regarding carriage of passengers deemed overweight. The policy has been in place since 1980, but only in the last few years has it been enforced after the airline noticed that nine out of 10 letters of complaint were about passengers being seated next to a “customer of size”.
Southwest’s policy is that it requires a customer to purchase the number of seats he/she occupies but will refund the extra seat cost if the flight is not full. This policy has been upheld in court and is supported by the US Department of Transportation’s stance that: “the purchase of a single ticket offers the use of a single seat”. The airline’s gauge of an overweight passenger is the armrest, as it serves as the boundary between seats.
Interestingly, the Oakland-based National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance web site encourages its members to get around that problem by raising the armrest upon boarding. It states: “When you get to your seat during pre-boarding, raise the armrest between seats. This may give you the inch or two of extra space you need. The chances are that the passenger who will be seated next to you won’t say anything. If he does, smile pleasantly and say that you’ll both be more comfortable if the armrest is up.” Not surprisingly, these organisations call for wider seats – a move with which few would disagree.
However, it is the inconsistencies of airlines’ approach to the problem that disturbs many overweight passengers. Qantas, which has some of the longest routes in the world with an economy seat pitch of just 79 centimetres, does not have a policy but states: “We do everything possible to meet any special needs our customers may have. Where a customer requests some extra space, we will consider their request at check-in and try to seat them next to an empty seat where possible.”
In Japan, All Nippon Airways has a special policy for giant Sumo wrestlers of an extra seat at half the economy fare.
On the overweight issue, one airline executive raises an interesting point, stating that: “It is unfair that we charge passengers for excess baggage but not excess weight. What about the poor passenger who weighs just 68 kilograms but has 32kg of baggage and gets slugged hundreds of dollars for excess baggage but the guy who weighs in at 100kg with a 14kg bag is fine?”
Of course, the issue “is a minefield of customer sensitivity”, says Richard Aboulafia of Washington DC-based Teal Group. However, by doing nothing, airlines run the risk of alienating and even injuring passengers seated next to the obese.
Most airlines clearly put this issue in the too-hard basket.
As the relentless squeeze gets applied to both carriers and passengers, perhaps the industry should adopt the suggestion made by Dave Grotto from the American Dietetic Association, who told the Chicago Tribune: “Maybe instead of just using those boxes at the gates to limit carry-on bags to certain sizes, the airlines need to have a people-sizer with a sign asking, ‘Do you fit into this?’”