fat tax on flights
 

i was sat watching the wright stuff earlier in the week (student tv) and the chat was on fat tax on flights should fat people have to pay a surcharge compared to thinner passengers as the extra weight causes the plane to burn more fuel. the presenters argument was that thin people are paying the same as fat people who burn more fuel so in essence are subsidising them.

anyone got any oppinions on this? i personally feel that airline tickets should be based on a cost per kilo in total i.e you pay for example £2 per kg. and you are weighed with your bags as well.

so for me to fly with a 20kg bag would be about £280. does anyone else have any idea or views? also am i the only person in the world who feels that 4x4's should be banned for everyone except registered agricultural businesses

I dont know if I feel bigger people should have to pay more because they burn more fuel, really how big of a difference is there? If its making a big difference then yeah, charge more but if not.. let it slide. Honestly there is only one issue in which I think bigger people should be charged more and that is group health insurance. I am American so I dont know how it works in the UK but group health insurance charges smokers more, but not obese people. that just doesnt make sense to me :)

I couldn't agree more about the 4x4 statement. Why do people need one to go to the supermarket? Are they secretly an acheaologist? I feel it's socially irresponsible to drive a truck or SUV unless you absolutely need it at this point.

i drive a 4x4 truck... in the city, where I am now, it's not such an issue, and will soon get a car. But up in rural wisconsin where I used to live, it was easier and safer to navigate unplowed roads with all 4 wheels in action. I guess at that point I was most concerned with my own safety, and my ability to help pull cars out of ditch.

South West Airlines in the States has a policy that overly heavy people have to buy two seats. I have done this with them in the past even though I was borderline (wouldn't need it now, I hope). You pay half price for the second seat and they are a lower cost airline anyway. The benefit of buying the extra seat means you get to board first (it is a first come first serve seating type airline) and that nobody sits next to you. To their credit, they weren't at all embarrassing about it.

Now, as far as a regular practice I would be pissed off if it was a general practice. Mostly just because of the practicalities. How are they going to police it? Weigh us all as we step up to the check in? Yeah, I can just see the reaction of tourists - let alone people actually from the UK - being told they have to be weighed in public and then humiliated. Plus, it would just give them an excuse to make seats even smaller so more people would fit into the grouping that has to pay more while squeezing more people in at the same time.

Ready2Shed: here in the U.K, health insurance costs more depending on how likely the insurer thinks you are to need treatment - so obesity definitely comes into it. But then, we have the NHS - so in theory everybody gets whatever treatment cost-free on a needs-first basis - I stress in theory. It is a major issue of debate whether, say, an obese person or smoker should be prioritised over someone who maintained a healthy lifestyle if the need is more urgent - or if the need is the same, who should go first, etc. It's really ethically difficult because you get into questions of responsibility, (what is it, where does it start, etc) blame and deserts...I don't know the answers.
I can't drive (well, I *can*, but I don't have a license) and I'm not going to get a car until I absolutely have to. Which will probably be next year, sadly, when I've graduated :(.

I will not own a vehicle that is not all-wheel drive or a 4x4. Where I live in northern Michigan, it is a necessity. That being said, I own a small, economical and relatively fuel efficient one.

So if you're anorexic, or a little person (dwarf) do you get a discount?
Seriously, this becomes ridiculous. While I understand the justification in making a larger person buy an extra seat, it seems to me it encourages airlines to make the seats smaller and smaller.

I really feel like I want to jump in on this one. I just got through flying out to and returning from Los Angeles. I live in Massachusetts, so it's a bit of a long flight. You can see from my tracker that I weigh 168 pounds; no tiny chickie, but neither am I obese. Maybe it's my imagination, but it seems to me that the seating on airplanes IS getting smaller and smaller. Maybe it IS so that they can force larger people to buy two seats. I don't know. But I'm not someone who is constantly traveling - I probably fly a couple of times a year - and I could swear that last year's seats were a little bigger and more comfortable. As for paying more to offset the increased fuel costs when a passenger is overweight, well as far as I'm concerned, that's a bunch of baloney. Fuel costs IN GENERAL are a huge rip-off. How is it that WE bear the brunt of all this so-called increase in the price of oil while at the same time, oil companies are making bigger profits than ever? Their stockholders are doing great, and their executives are living VERY large with huge salaries and even huge(r) bonuses.
As far as driving 4X4's and SUV's, I have no problem with anybody driving them if they NEED to - if they live somewhere that gets a lot of snow, for example, or if they have a lot of rugged terrain to drive through to get to the grocery market. But if you live in a place that has normal amounts of *weather*, and especially if you live in a temperate or tropical climate, I think that driving those things is unneccessary and little more than a trendy ego-booster. I drive to & from Boston (40 miles each way) to work every day. I drive a small car that uses very little fuel. You know what the WORST part of it is? When you park in the parking lot of a grocery market and one of those big monstrous things parks on either side of you, and you can't see a danged thing trying to back out...LOL...grumble, grumble....but outside of the inconvenience to me, personally, I DO think that driving a vehicle that uses so much gas on a day-to-day basis if it's not neccessary IS awfully greedy. Ask me what I think about people who talk on their cell phones while driving, too....Grrrrrrrrrr!!!!!
TTFN,
E!

B doesn't necessarily follow A here.

I don't think selling seats by weight will work, but also I'm not buying the idea that being weighed is humiliating or that flying is a dignity-filled process these day.

Charging "by the pound" wouldn't offend me, if an 80 lb person with 300 lbs of luggage would pay the same as a 380 lb person with no luggage.

Heck charging by the inches on a bench seat, wouldn't offend me.

But what does bother me, is charging different fares based on some fuzzy, ill-defined, subjective distinction.

Everything breaks down when you talk about individual cases. What is somebody is overweight due to another condition or what if simply have worked longer and therefore paid more into the NHS than the so called healthy lifestyle person. All the assumptions that are made whenever such conversations come up (not aimed at you..it comes up every now and then in the media) is that the overweight people don't pay their bit into the NHS. What is I work all my life and pay into the NHS and never take a dime of benefits and never get cancer or any other major disease that is going to cost the NHS a lot of money? I would say that I earned my treatment.

You don't think being publicly weighed in a line full of people would be humiliating for some people?

Above all else, the airlines are businesses and I can't imagine the reaction some people will have. On top of which, it is already such a long process to check in for an international flight and go through all the security. Then you have the practical side of when do you issues this charge? It would have to be on boarding. So, you have somebody that has paid for their flight already then having an additional on the spot charge. I don't see it happening for a number of reasons.

If they did this would that mean that ultra thin people would get a discount?

I would venture to guess that when most people think about it being a good thing they aren't really thinking of fuel costs but more about not wanting to sit next to a fat person. So, it is an annoyance charge. In that case, I say every person with an infant gets extra charges on the chance that their infant will be the one screaming baby that is required to be on every transatlantic flight.

I wouldn't mind paying if the rate scale were realistic and worthwhile. The seats ARE getting smaller. If you look at the price of the average coach ticket compared to the price of the average business class ticket, you're paying considerably more for only a few additional square inches. If paying more got me a wider seat and more leg room instead of a seat I could lean into, I'd do it, fat or thin. But, for now, paying A LOT more just gets me a slightly nicer seat and paying a little more gets me a bruise on my ribcage from the stupid armrest. Somebody call the airlines! As long as the consumers demand more and cheaper flights, I'm told, the seats will keep being tiny.

Being in Milwaukee, I just try to fly Midwest (almost all their planes are business class seats only) whenever I can. The fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies they pass out mid-flight never hurt either ;)

BTW I drive an SUV because it's more comfortable for an overweight person than a compact car. I don't need to hear circus theme music while on my archeological trips to the store in a Mini Cooper.

My husband and I drive a used van (with over 160,000 miles on it, we've only put about 30,000 miles on it ourselves). The fuel efficiency is horrible, but the seats are comfortable and upright. We both have spine, joint, and pain issues, so a comfortable sitting position is very important. We've been searching high and low for a fuel efficient car with upright seats that aren't too low to the ground. So far, SUV's, vans, and jeeps are the only vehicles we have found that fit our needs. We're both dieting, but my husband's joint disease is hereditary (not helped, but not caused by his weight). If we both get down to our ideal weights, the vehicle choices will still be very limited, hubby's grandparents (both very thin individuals) have pretty much the same problem with vehicles as we do, because of granddad's spine issues. They just bought an SUV because he could no longer drive their economy sedan comfortably.

I think it just shows "simple" solutions never fit complex problems.