Quote:
The stupidest thing is that THEY NEED HEAVY LUGGAGE. I was on a trip once where they accidentally put our flight's luggage on the 6:30pm flight rather than our 7pm flight. So once we were all boarded onto the plane they came on and said they had good news and bad news. When we got into Ottawa our luggage would already be on the floor and not have to wait for the carrousel. Bad news was that it was going to be another 20 minutes while they loaded sand bags into the luggage compartment to balance out the plane. So in other words they charge you for something that they need to complete the trip.
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More accurately, flights need to be properly weighted and balanced, and the airlines make certain assumptions about the average baggage weight per passenger.
It's not true to say that they need "heavy" luggage; rather, they need
a certain weight range of luggage in the compartment to properly balance the plane. Yes, it's no big deal if a few passengers pack extra-heavy bags, but if everyone brought overweight bags, then the plane would have difficulty taking off. The fee for overweight bags is to discourage this behaviour.
Read more
here.