Finnair, Finland's flagship airline, is asking passengers at Helsinki Airport to voluntarily and anonymously
weigh themselves with their carry-on luggage. This will help Finnair better estimate
the weight of the airplane for safe takeoff and potentially save on fuel costs.
There are more than 600
volunteers. Finnair will thank them for their
efforts with a small gift.
The weigh-in policy will continue until May. The
Finnish transport and communications agency, Traficom, will receive the results
and use them for loading calculations from next year until 2030.
Some people think this is a great safety and efficiency improvement and
should be used by all airlines.
According to
Statista, in 2021, commercial airlines worldwide used about 60 billion gallons
of fuel annually. With fuel prices soaring in the last few years, due to the
energy crisis following the Russia-Ukraine war, several airlines are now trying
to be more cost and fuel-efficient.
If this study
is successful, Finnair will probably implement this policy long-term, because
it could potentially save the airline a considerable amount of money at a time
when most European airlines are still struggling to return to pre-pandemic
levels in terms of profits.
Finnair is
facing increasing union strikes and, as a consequence, more than 500 flights cancellations.
It will be interesting to know the impact these events will have on the
airline’s profit margins this quarter.
On the other
hand, several passengers were outraged at this new policy, taking to social
media platform X to voice concerns about the airline using passengers’ weight
data to discriminate against those who suffer from eating disorders or other
medical conditions.
Many passengers
are facing discriminatory airline seat policies on flights. Some must buy two seats,
instead of one and some airplanes do not have appropriate seat belt extenders
available for those who need them.
Adapted from NewsSky, The Guardian and Euronews
