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Samoa Air Rolling Out "Pay As You Weigh" Fares
cylonlover writes "Thrifty Samoans looking to take a trip may want to shed a few pounds before booking a flight with Samoan Air after the airline announced the implementation of a 'pay as you weigh' system. Unlike some other airlines that have courted controversy by forcing some obese passengers to purchase two seats, Samoa's national carrier will charge passengers based on their weight."
They have a demo fare calculator for the curious.
As someone with daughter that just turned two years old, meaning we now have to pay for a ticket for her to fly, this sounds like a great deal to me.
If you sit in front of me, you're likely to find my feet right behind yours. This is part of the reason I no longer fly. The rest being accounted for by the TSA nonsense.
Same here, pretty much. The security took way too long at McCarran Int'l last time I was there. Then the plane ride was uncomfortable, even for a little guy like me.
What we need is a new approach to passenger seating that takes into account security, comfort, and economy. How about this: Replace all the airline seats with padded tubes stacked like firewood (think Bruce Willis's trip to Phloston Paradise in The Fifth Element). Mix nitrous oxide in with the passenger tube's air to sedate them (I imagine it would be hard for a terrorist to hijack a plane while sedated). Safety procedure for an emergency landing is: you do nothing, because you're already limp (and therefore less likely to break bones) and you're wrapped in a giant padded burrito. Awesome. Maybe wake people up if you're ditching the plane in water, but otherwise, nah. Just eject their tubes a safe distance away from the aircraft upon landing.
Imagine boarding a plane in Los Angeles, lying down on a comfy pad, and then the next thing you know... you're waking up in New York, or Paris, or Moscow, hearing the local time and weather from the soothing, confident voice of a captain who you just *know* held an eight-hour orgy with the rest of the flight crew while everyone else was sedated.
Some people would throw up from the gas as they disembarked, sure, but that's a small price to pay. Plenty of people get airsick during turbulence and the airlines just give them a sack.