Blog: Airlines taking the weight strain

Catherine Sleep | 5 November 2004

It’s not just the health service that is feeling the strain of the growing obesity epidemic. The average US citizen gained ten pounds during the 1990s, and this extra weight has left airlines having to foot an extra US$275m in fuel costs per year.

Will the time come when passengers are weighed in the same way as their luggage, and those with excess weight are ordered to pay a supplement? Now, the prospect of that particular embarrassment at the check-in desk could well provide the extra incentive required to shift those extra pounds.