They want to discreetly weigh us so that airlines know how much fuel to fill up

Carrying passengers by air is a fairly low-margin business. No wonder airlines are trying to cut costs wherever they can. Perhaps they have just arrived at a simple but very effective system - it is enough to determine how much they weigh passengers who they take on board.

The British startup Fuel Matrix convinces that airlines are losing their fortunes, because they estimate the total weight of aircraft and, as a result, fuel too much fuel to machines. Chief Operating Officer Nick Brasier claims that by refueling aircraft carriers burn up to 0.5 percent. more fuel. Seemingly not much, but taking into account the growing air traffic and fuel prices, this is to translate into a billion dollars a year for the entire industry.

Let's repeat - one billion dollars. Only because the carrier does not know whether a group of fat people or passengers rubbing against anorexia will be taken on board.

Here, however, the most interesting begins. Get into the idea of ​​weighing passengers is no art at all. To date, at least 4 lines have been used in practice - Uzbekistan Airways, Samoa Air, Hawaiian Airlines and Finnair. In addition to the latter - quite exotic combination. In Samoa, the activists did not bother any more, because using the knowledge about the mass of the customer, they selected the final price list.

Such solutions in serious lines, however, will not pass. For the same weighing, it has potential. The British wondered what to do so that it would not be too burdensome for passengers. Because imagine now - you are entering a special weight, and there a huge indicator moves to around 110 kg. If we do not have 2 meters of height - shame on the whole airport.

Fuel Matrix wants to do it a bit more tactfully

Yes, we would not have to check our conscience and remember to neglect the gym. Startup wants to put a special pillow in the luggage dispatch area. At the end, the passenger will be asked on the screen if he stands on it. If the "yes" button is pressed, the computer will send its data to the system.

Knowing the weight of each passenger and baggage, the lines would be able to calculate the total weight of the aircraft and estimate how much fuel it would need. Currently, carriers assume that the average man is an extra 93 kg on board, and a woman is 75 kg.

Of course, the idea has one gap. A lot of passengers do not approach baggage points at all, guided by cabins at once to a personal inspection. But these times may go too soon to the past, because the municipal news carries that the next lines will follow Wizz Aira and Ryanair introducing a more restrictive model regarding hand luggage .

In this way, carriers want to get passengers to put the bags, which they take in the ticket price, into the luggage hatch. And reduce the delay of aircraft resulting from desperate attempts to cram the cabins over their heads.

The whole plan may look like a curiosity, only if we do not know the current practices of airlines.

And they can stand on their own to relieve their machines a bit. United exchanged e.g. deck warehouses. The new versions were 30 grams lighter which would translate into 290 thousand. dol savings per year .

This is of course only one example, but we can find many more. Oh, for example the case of the Southwest line, which decided to replace the seats and stopped serving water in glass bottles. She calculated that aluminum cans would simply be lighter.

According to the website "Simple Flying" the idea of ​​the British caught. Fuel Matrix is ​​already talking about the implementations of its device with several airlines. And while the term "discreet weighing" sounds a bit creepy , the Fuel Matrix cushions have many pluses.

In addition to savings on the fuel itself, they could also help in arranging passengers on the plane, so as to properly balance it (although this idea would require resignation from online check-in, and no one would agree).

Lower combustion of aviation fuel also means reduction of CO2 emissions into the environment. And this is in a situation where airlines are growing on the main polluters of our planet , the argument is impossible to ignore.

They want to discreetly weigh us so that airlines know how much fuel to fill up