I lover user fee based systems. Although I think that the marginal cost for high weight people would make relatively little difference in terms of the cost of a flight.
A 747-8I has a maximum takeoff weight of roughly 1 million lbs. The maximum payload is 170,000. It has about 500 seats *200lbs/person - 100,000 lbs.
Essentially passengers and fuel for passengers can account for at the most 50% of the fuel cost for the flight. Now fuel costs are somewhere around 30-35% of an airlines costs. So if 50% of the fuel is attributed to passenger and baggage weight and 35% of costs is fuel then only 17% of the ticket cost is actually fuel cost.
So take a $500 tickt cost with an average passenger weight of 170lbs. $85 of fuel cost per person or 50 cents a lb. A 120lb person would pay $60 for fuel and a 250lb person would pay $125 for fuel. So the 120lb person would pay $480 for their ticket and the 250lb person would pay $540. Is it worth it for the airline to do this as now you have to weigh everyone before your flight and deal with refunds for people?
I dont see the value in it. And are you going to attract new customers or for most people traveling with a spouse it will balance off and people traveling business won't care because the company is paying for it.
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