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Airline Begins Weighing Passengers For 'Safety'
New submitter Lopsemily writes to note that passengers on Uzbekistan Airways may face a new pre-flight check: In a recent statement, the country's flag carrier announced it will weigh passengers and their carry-on luggage prior to flights to determine how much weight they'll be adding to the plane. 'According to the rules of International Air Transport Association, airlines are obliged to carry out the regular procedures of preflight control passengers weighing with hand baggage to observe requirements for ensuring flight safety,' says the airline's statement.
Seriously, has this ever been a problem?
When was the last time that a plane had to make an emergency landing or a flight delayed because the plane simply weighed too much due to obese travelers?
This looks more like a precursor for charging extra fees for tickets based on a person's weight... kind of like charging extra for bandwidth usage or bottled air.
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So after having a retinal scan, finger prints taken, walking through the scanner, and probably having a pat down, taking my keys out of my pocket, and walking through the scanner again they want to do something unreasonable...... weigh me!
I hope data is accumulated and presented summarised to the crew. Otherwise, some people may find it a privacy violation.
There's no detail in the article - they may be doing this only for very small aircraft (the cited Samoan airline for example, is flying small 4 seat single engine aircraft where weight and balance is absolutely critical, and an unexpected fat passenger will mean necessarily having to leave someone or luggage or fuel behind).
For larger aircraft, standard passenger weights are used. However this can sometimes be wrong. A friend is a senior FO flying the MD-11, and his airline takes military contracts from time to time. One time leaving Hawaii they discovered they were carrying a full plane load of Marines armed to the teeth, although they didn't know that until they started coming through the door. He said the aircraft didn't climb as well as usual, and when he estimated their true takeoff weight, he reckoned they took off some 12,000 lbs overweight.
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Of course the quotes are in the original article.
Sounds good to me, why should people who don't have as much weight in their luggage or their stomachs have to subsidize those that do?
I've never really understood the stupid luggage limits, I'm a fairly light guy so why do I have to pay more for a few kilos of extra luggage while the person next to me weighs 30 kilos more? It's never really been about the weight but just about adding costs... and this should have happened a long time ago ;)
If you plan to cram even more seats into the plane, and then fill it up with passengers and luggage to its maximum take-off weight, then this is a good idea.
Most airlines have done some statistics, and make sure that in 99.9999% of the cases (*), the weight of all the passengers does not exceed the maximum take off weight. But that means they are typically not completely full.
If this airline wants to cram more people into its plane, they must accept that they will sometimes exceed the maximum weight. So, you check everyone's weight before, and it can occur that there is a seat available, but you still (in a way) overbooked the flight.
It can obviously also be an argument that 'now that we got the data anyway', we make the fat people pay more. But I somehow doubt that they will actually do that.
(*) I am not sure what percentage they use - that's a guess
I bet this is all about fuel costs and nothing to do with safety. If they can more accurately weigh the plane, they can put just enough fuel in to reach the destination, and save millions in jet fuel over the course of a year.
Just saying.
I don't believe it is wrong or unreasonable to require passengers who exceed some generous weight (e.g. 100KG) to either pay for two seats or to pay a surcharge to board the plane. Society and business should have a zero tolerance to obesity and it sure as hell should not be normalized like it has become in the US.
I am surprised that modern commercial jets don't have load sensors in the gear to determine total aircraft weight automatically.
So much for market forces resulting in a positive outcome. Airline industry is one of the most customer-hostile service providers.
For at least a decade a number of Chinese Airlines have been doing this for their coach class customers. In particular on domestic segments where the planes are configured to be really tight. There are industry standard weight and balance calculations and they had to be updated in the late 90s because North Americans and Western Europeans all weigh more than they used to.
I've read through the early comments here, and I see a lot of vitriol for "obese" people, and statements that people should only be allowed a weight limit of 100kg, or worse, 200lb, beyond which there should be extra charges.
Go to hell, each and every one of you that supports that idea. I'm 6'3", and my body fat percentage hovers around 15%. I _sink_ in fresh water. And I weigh 240lbs, before any luggage is included. I am healthy and fit. I already suffer with airline seats that are far too small for my frame, with my knees in the back of the seat in front of me, and the headrest sitting firmly between my shoulder blades. And now you have the temerity to think that I should pay _more_ for the privilege of flying, because you think people that weigh more than 140 pounds are fat and unhealthy, and it's their own fault?
Get real.
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Technically possible but logistically complicated and unnecessary since they know the dry weight of the plane already with pretty fair accuracy. The only variable is the contents (you, luggage, fuel, food, etc) and to allocate costs truly fairly it makes sense to charge by weight. A lot of people will be offended but weight directly affects fuel consumption so if you bring more weight on the plane you probably should be paying for a bigger percentage of the fuel costs. Not really fair to me to pay to haul you and your stuff if I'm traveling light.
I've always thought it would make the most logical sense to weigh a passenger and all their luggage and add a fuel surcharge instead of silly baggage fees. Travel heavy and you pay more. Travel light and you save a bit. It also stops people from trying to cram everything into carry-on because you get charged either way. Of course obese and larger people will be unhappy (understandably) but they ARE responsible for more fuel being consumed so it's really only fair that they pay more for it.
As stated elsewhere, weight and balance are important in a plane, and accidents have happened as a result. I've taken a number of small plane commuter flights in the US and they regularly asked how much I weighed, and they definitely weighed my baggage. The smaller the plane is, the more it matters.
Safety is one aspect, efficiency is another- knowing how much you weigh also tells the airline how much fuel they must put on board, and even how much cargo they can safely take- much cargo flies on a space (weight) available basis.
Hell yeah, I want them to know how much weight is on the plane.
While averages work reasonably well for larger planes, having accurate weight data does increase the safety margin even there. For small planes it is critical to have good numbers and there have been crashes where one thing went wrong and accurate weight numbers might have prevented them.
Of course, what the bean-counters will do is somehow make heavier people pay more (and without making things cheaper for lighter ones). This is however a political problem.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Flying to the US Virgin Islands, last leg was on a 10 seat puddle jumper. They weighed our bags, asked our weights (probably added 20% or so). Then when we got on they paired us up by approximate size, rather than putting couples together like usual, so the plane would be balanced. I just assumed that was standard procedure for tiny planes.
I've done this myself when taking very small planes (from San Juan to/from St. Thomas) and it wasn't a big deal. For what it's worth I'm a mechanical engineer who's worked in aircraft manufacturing my whole career and I agree that excessive weight IS a safety issue, especially on smaller aircraft. With larger aircraft you can probably just average it out between passengers and then measure how much the landing gear is compressed before takeoff.
I can understand not wanting external costs from heavier customers, but the added cost of weighing people might not be worth the difference.
I'd be all for that.
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The Nepal Airlines once sacrificed a goat to appease a Hindu God. But like this story, it says more about Nepal than it does about Airlines.
Other airlines will no doubt ignore Uzbekistan, just as we ignore Nepal Airlines.
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The IATA doesn't actually have such a rule. Uzbekistan Airlines is being dishonest. http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/12/travel/airline-weighing-passengers/
It's true that the weight and center of mass on the plane contributed to the crash of Air Midwest 5481. However, the plane was also improperly serviced at a facility that had poor training and wasn't making an effort to correct those issues. The weight, improper maintenance, and skipping an important testing step after the maintenance were responsible for the crash.
The weight of an aircraft is also an issue during its landing, not just during takeoff as with the prior example. This can be rectified to some extent by not putting too much fuel in a plane, which will also make it heavier. It's necessary to have some extra fuel if there is a need to divert to another airport or stay in a holding pattern longer than expected upon arrival. But there isn't a good reason for having excess fuel beyond what's necessary for that. Older aircraft had systems available to dump fuel in case of the need to make an emergency landing right after takeoff. While they would be under the maximum takeoff weight, they wouldn't be under the maximum structural landing weight. More recent aircraft don't have the ability to dump fuel and will, instead, circle to burn off enough fuel or simply land overweight expecting that an incident isn't likely and inspections will be done after landing. Interestingly enough, this was a big issue on 9/11 when many international fights weren't allowed into American airspace. They were sent to Canada or their point of origin and many had to dump fuel in order to land safely because they weren't permitted to continue to their intended destination.
For those hoping to have extra fees for heavier passengers, that's not likely to happen anytime soon. Samoa Air has already tried this and it hasn't caught on elsewhere. Uzbekistan Airlines indicates that individual weights aren't being recorded and it's simply tabulating men, women, and children by category. They won't single out passengers for extra fees or anything like that.
I bet this is all about fuel costs and nothing to do with safety.
It's mostly about fuel costs though there is a safety component to it. You have to know the weight of the plane with reasonable accuracy to put in the right amount of fuel. There also are issues on smaller planes regarding proper distribution of weight. If you've flown in puddle jumpers you very likely have been asked to move seats to even out the weight distribution. I've had to do it a number of times and it is entirely about safety.
If they can more accurately weigh the plane, they can put just enough fuel in to reach the destination, and save millions in jet fuel over the course of a year.
Quite true but there is also the issue that travelers currently aren't charged accurately for the weight they bring on the plane. They sort of do it by guessing the average weight of a passenger and then charging extra fees for luggage. But it would be much more sensible to actually charge each customer a fuel surcharge based on weight (themselves + their luggage). Bring more on and you pay a bit more. Travel light and you save a bit. Since weight is the biggest variable in fuel use it makes perfect sense to charge customers based on weight. Plus it would create an incentive to pack light AND it would reduce the number of people trying to cram an elephant in their carry-on to avoid baggage fees.
Maybe this is an over-the-top way of screening for Kevin Smith when he flies.
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In 1960 the average American male was 165 lbs and the average female was 140 lbs. Today those weights are 195 for men and 165 for women. At the same time airlines are continuously trying to add more seats. At some point it will pay off for the airline to use the actual weights of passengers instead of some assumed average to do their weight and balance calculations.
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working for an airline that rhymes with town crest, passenger and luggage weight is an issue thats usually handled automagically by a combination of pilots and flight crew. you'll rarely see it, but very large passengers will generally not get on a flight until they buy the adjacent seats for their row. Its a call made by the captain and crew to ensure drinks service and emergency procedures work. you might be refused a wing seat in an exit row, you might not get to sit in front. we try to avoid it because fat passengers are typically angry passengers.
passengers generally have been getting larger. the obesity epidemic makes flights heavier, fuel costlier, and boarding and deplaning slower. jetways have to handle more load and they see their pantographs serviced more frequently. and the bathrooms (or as we call it lav service) become a bigger issue thanks to the poor diet we're all subjected to and the confined nature of the space. its more frequent and the equipment ends up being serviced more often. passengers also pack more crap than they did 30 years ago, and in response we're trying to lighten flights by giving an economic incentive to 'pack light.' That turns out, in my opinion, not to have worked. instead more people are just forcibly insisting their checked luggage be treated as carry-on. Trust me, if its a packed flight and youre not boarding with a light backpack and a jacket, that bags getting checked no matter how quickly you try to shuffle through the line.
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Yes, it can be a BIG deal.... particularly on smaller planes.
This was about 6 years ago. I was on a flight from DFW on a small jet (single isle, 2 seats on the left of the isle and 1 on the right.
Plane was full. Pilot came into the cabin and surveyed things, and left, and came back with FA to move people around to redistribute weight (fat asses) from back to front. Took a goddamn 30 minutes for those hams to move with their crap.
CG and CL need to be close.... and the hams were shifting CG too far to the rear.
Seriously, all CG calculations aside (which happen automatically in large aircraft), have you noticed that treating overweight people like sh*t is now the only remaining universally tolerated form of social abuse?
The US is pretty bad, but it's not exactly awesome elsewhere. People are just not educated about nutrition. They know nothing about protein, carbohydrates, fats, sugars, vitamins, minerals, food sensitivies/allergies, intestinal flora, pollutants and contaminants, or any of those things. People just eat whatever the hell they want, which is primarily junk food, they get fat, slow down their brains, and get even dumber. The biggest offenders are actually the MDs who have all knowledge of nutrition ripped out of their brains upon entering med school. They're dangerously ignorant and, as representatives to most people of how they should take care of themselves, the MDs pass on their ignorance to the rest of the population. The FDA isn't a lot of help either with so much bullshit in their recommendations. Contrary to what most doctors will tell you, mineral and vitamin deficiencies abound among Americans, because they eat such as shitty diet. Trust me, the trace amounts of iodine you get in your salt just aren't enough, and people have magnesium deficiencies left and right, just to mention two.
Some fat people will tell you that they have a "glandular problem." Maybe some don't, but this is actually fairly common. However, if you eat right, you can compensate for a lot of these problems, and there are ways of treating it. But people don't even TRY. They don't listen to what little nutritional advice they do get, so they just keep getting fatter and sicker. They don't take resposibility for their bodies.
So, you know, I don't think it's a problem that airlines micro-optimize their operations to account for passenger weight. People should take responsibility for their own personal health and learn to eat right. If they don't, the rest of shouldn't have to suffer. The thing is, this airline is from Uzbekistan, a part of the world where discrimination is accepted as part of their culture, so they'll actually have an easier time getting away with this sort of thing. If an airline in the US did this, they'd get all sorts of flak over it, although I still think they should be within their rights to do it.
It's shitty nutrition that I think is part of the increase in autism we observe (assuming it's not *just* an increase in diagnosis). But idiots want to blame vaccines instead, because it's easy to not get a vaccine, but it takes proper discipline to change your diet.
And discipline is just not something that's encouraged in most parts of the world.
I remember a crash of a small twin engined turbo-prop, around 2006. The plane took off and crashed within seconds of take off, it just pitched up and up and up, stalled, rolled in and crashed into a hanger. The cause was the use of average weight for passengers to estimate the take off weight to set the elevator tabs. Compounded by unusual number of heavy bags. The plane was tail heavy, the center of gravity was beyond the allowable limits and the elevators could not generate enough aerodynamic force to pitch the plane down.
The captain of the plane, the leader of NTSB investigation team, the air traffic controller, the emergency crew leader that went into the wreckage looking for survivors, and the baggage handler who provided the clue that cracked the case were all women.
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This used to be normal in the early days of commercial aviation. I've seen a picture of people being 'weighed in' prior to boarding a plane from one of the aerodromes around London in the 20s or 30s.
Fatties shouldn't be allowed to fly anyway.
I boarded 60 people plane from LAX to SF and I was asked to leave it because it was too heavy. Note that I am 160lb so they did not gain much but I guess I was last one to book it (whatever rule they had).
One big issue I see with charging by the kilo is actually booking the flights. Most of us book online with at least one layover. Do you trust people to accurately / honestly report their weight at the time of purchase? Weight of luggage is only accurately known at the time of travel. What happens at the airport if some under reported or over reported their weight? Could a couple use their average weight (one is overweight and the other under), or do they pay normal fare for the lighter person (no discount) and pay a surcharge for the heavier partner?
Having recently flown on an airline named after a greek letter, and having sampled the output of their catering services, I am reminded that I am somewhat repulsed by the fact that you mention "nutrition" and "airlines" in the same post.
However, mentioning "airlines" and "flak" in the same sentence somewhat atones for that.
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When taking a flight to the interior in a tiny one engine airplane everyone gets weighed along with all the equipment.
I should think a couple of cameras and right software should be able to make a reasonable estimate of a passenger's weight, which should be good enough if they're not planning to flag individuals.
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Even though in lessons with my regular instructor we never went through weight-and-balance calculations, this was on the basis that a trainer was in proper trim with 2 people and a full tank of gas and we never took any luggage, I knew the Piper PA-38 Tomahawk 2-seat trainer had a stringent gross weight limit. Even though each person, pilot or passenger, was deemed to weight 160 lbs "by the book" for weight-and-balance, the PA-38 only allowed for full gas tanks if the "payload" was at or below 320 lbs -- at least my regular instructor had cautioned me that if go over, you need to offload fuel.
I knew that I weighed 160 lbs "back in college", and whereas the FAA guy wasn't unusually tall, he had the look of the few pounds that comes as we age.
Faced with a diplomatic dilemma, I got up the courage to ask, "If I am to calculate weight-and-balance the right way, I am going to have to know how much you weigh . . " The Examiner barks back at me, "You are to count each person in the aircraft as weighing 160 lbs!"
OK, OK, alright already!
I'll have you know I have weighed under 130 lbs since I was 18. Why should I have to subsidize everything for everyone weighing more than I do? Roads, Plane tickets, soda taxes, etc?
Maybe they want to put the screaming babbies next to the morbidly obese?
Could they?
Would they?
Should they?
Although most instances of obesity is inability to control one's shoveling food into one's mouth (like my fatty of an ex) there are instances where obesity is caused by hormonal or glandular (thyroid, pituitary, adrenal) problems, so that isn't fair. What IS fair is charging someone for two seats if they're oozing into the next seat.
Obesity is always caused by shoveling more food into your mouth than you can digest. Hormones don't have calories so it still is them stuffing their face. I recognize that staying slim can be quite challenging (especially in the face of hormonal problems) and I do sympathize but the simple fact is that there is no way to get fat without overeating. Period.
In any case, life isn't fair. People who are simply bigger naturally (even if very fit) will get charged a bit more but the physics of the situation doesn't care. They ARE going to cause the plane to burn more fuel than someone smaller and that's just a fact. I prefer not to have to subsidize their share of the fuel costs for the flight. I'll pay for what I use and they can pay for what they use and I think that is quite fair at the end of the day.
Just look at all those fat people in WWII Dacha footage. How do you explain that? Wha? Of course the German townfolk, who'd you think?
Because it would be an enormous headache. I don't know if you've flown recently, but most people don't go to the ticket counter to buy their tickets anymore. They buy tickets online, and if this policy was in place you would have to make the passenger input their weight and their luggage weight into the system when they buy the ticket, potentially months in advance.
Not a big deal. They already have infrastructure in place to deal with fees for checking bags. It would not be a huge challenge to add some scales to the system. They weigh the bags already and they can put a scale either in the security line or next to the gate. Attach the boarding pass to a credit card and they don't have to do anything special at the airport aside from stepping on a scale with their belongings.
It would be an administrative/legal nightmare.
No it wouldn't. Most of the infrastructure is there already. They'd basically have to add a few scales and some computer code and a little extra procedure. It would replace the baggage fees which we already deal with.
For example, do you include clothing weight? If so, expect passengers to start stripping when they are on the borderline of a cheaper weight bracket. Like boxers do.
Of course. EVERYTHING you take on the plane including yourself gets weighed. You + your luggage. You can take something off if you want but you are going to get charged for it anyway because they would weigh your luggage too. Give it to someone else? Then they get charged and I doubt they'll appreciate that.
What about disabled passengers? Most countries require airlines to carry their equipment, like wheelchairs and crutches, for free. Some people are overweight due to health problems which can be classed as disabilities in a legal sense. You can bet a lot of them will argue that angle, genuinely or otherwise.
What about them? You can make some reasonable allowances for disability assistance. Nobody is suggesting we have to be inhuman ogres about the whole thing. But more weight = more fuel used. That is an indisputable fact. If you bring more weight on the plane then you should have to pay a greater share of the fuel cost. Whether that extra weight is you or your luggage is irrelevant to the physics and economics of the situation.
How would you take payment? The passenger buys a ticket online, but isn't weighed until they arrive at the airport.
Same way we take payments now. It would be trivial to tie the boarding pass to a credit card so when you get in line for being weighed the fee gets assessed automatically. If you pay cash or something else unusual you get sent to a line to settle up any charges. They already have the basic infrastructure to handle this since they charge for all the checked bags now. This is basically the same thing just with one extra scale.
Estimates will never be very good because even if people don't lie domestic scales are often not very accurate.
Using estimates would be pointless and stupid. You just weigh them and you don't need to make a big production of it.
Except that this would open up a can of worms like sexism, etc.. Why should an average guy pay more for a plane flight with the same weight of luggage as an average woman? Like it or not, men tend to be heavier, even if they are at their ideal weight.
He should pay more because he requires more fuel to move around. Simple physics. He very literally costs more to fly from point A to point B. The only arguments against him paying more for the indisputable fact that he requires more fuel to be burned are social ones. Economically he is using more resources so logically he should pay more for that.
Plus I don't know about the women you know but in my experience women tend to pack a lot more crap when they travel so it probably evens out somewhat.
The only exception I might make would be some allowance for medical devices like wheelchairs.
Of course, they could go with some sort of standard for height, weigh, sex, etc. and you only pay for the amount that you are over your ideal weight. But this, again, gets into privacy concerns because it would be recorded somewhere.
Not necessary and too judgmental. The ONLY truly fair way to do it is to weigh the person plus their luggage and charge a fee for whatever that total weight is. If you are naturally a bit larger that's just the way it goes. You pay for what you use. The reason why you use more is irrelevant.
The airlines want to charge by weight, not by seat. I say fine. If I have to pay 50% more because I way 50% more than your "average", I want 50-fucking-% more room for my knees and elbows.
I don't think anyone cares much about weight. You can be 6'2 and be in great shape but weight 250. But if you are - ahem- wide and spilling into the seat next to you then there is a problem.
Obesity is always caused by shoveling more food into your mouth than you can digest. .
Not exactly. Generally, it's the excessive consumption of easily digested carbohydrates, which trigger an insulin response that causes and maintains the excessive accumulation of fat tissue.
I highly recommend a book by Gary Taubes, Why We Get Fat (and what to do about it.)
I can't do it justice, but I'll paraphrase a point he made:
We give the same advice to someone looking to work up an appetite for a sumptuous dinner as we give to someone looking to lose wait. Consequently, any diet that doesn't allow someone to eat until they're satisfied is doomed to failure. So you need to change what you eat, eat until your hunger is satisfied, and then you can lose weight.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Heh. You're right. Airline food is evil. And imagine having celiac disease and being able to eat anything they serve on the plane. Hell, you'd have trouble finding gluten-free food at an airport!
I did not by any means imply that the airlines give any thought to nutrition AT ALL. They just want to save money, and they have noticed some diversity in passenger weight. Like any psychopatic entity hell-bent on optimizing profit margins, they're going to latch onto that.
I recently flew from Phoenix wedged between to women who both weighed close to 300 lbs. if they weighed a pound. I couldn't get my elbows un-wedged from my ribs for 2 days following the flight. I can see being embarrassed if you weigh that much and still can't see over the top of the seat, but why should I be forced to suffer the invasion of the seat I pay for because of someone else's' health/size issues ?
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
It's not discrimination. Just pay-per-use.
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It's that simple. Ban them from travelling. I'd have them secluded away so we don't have to suffer their presence. It's their own fault if they're ugly, flaccid, sweaty abhumans. They should pay the price.
Greatest country Uzbekistan.
Holy crap, someone look up the mass of an empty 747, and it's passenger capacity. Add passenger capacity Ã-- 30 kg to account for luggage/carry-on mass . I'd be very interested to know what proportion of total mass the passengers make on a flying jetliner. How much do a couple of fatties really affect it?
We flew Cebu air and after ticketing was weigh-in. I'd prefer they err on safe side than "oops we were too heavy and ran off runway". They could always turn folks back once a meatbag weight is reached.
Flying in an Air Malaysia Twin Otter, from Bario to some backwater with a grass air-strip. Everyone was weighed. Frankly weighing people makes sense if you are at risk of carrying too much weight.
This has nothing to do with passenger capacity. Weight and balance are calculated via sensors in the landing gear. Very worst case, fuel will need to be removed. This airline is likely carrying cargo and wants to maximize that cargo weight so is limiting the passengers in what their "total" weight (body + luggage) can be. Most flights do not carry a full fuels load so the calculation is moot. But longer flights or flights that are heavy (or high altitude airports in some cases) will limit fuel load.
As always, follow the money...
Are they going to take into account not just weight but body fat percentage, frame, and height? There is no one size fits all and people shouldnt be charged for being tall, having a large frame, being very muscular (all of which incidently would weigh more), or falling outside the range of what is deemed 'normal'. Who decides what is normal weight? I can forsee this will cause all kinds of problems, and probably result in charges of discrimination. This is just pure greed and another way to nickel and dime the public. The airlines are making a killing off of baggage fees as it is. Airlines need to stop being so F**cking greedy and finding ways to improve their customer service and stop treating people like cattle. Stop squeezing people in and provide a comfortable ride and amenities at a fair price; and they will respond by flying more. What with baggage fees, security checkpoint hassles, and the 'sardine' experience my flying has dropped by 50%. If I can get to a location by car within 6-8 hours, I will drive and not deal with the damn hassles of flying .#FLYINGSUCKSBIGTIME!
Ever since the airlines began to charge baggage fees, passengers have packed everything they can in their carry on luggage to avoid having to pay the baggage fees. It takes more time for baggage screening as they have to check larger baggage. It takes more time before the flight since passengers have large baggage that won't fit into the overhead bins and must be forced to fit by forcing the baggage to fit. Passengers spend more time waiting to get off of airplanes as people have to try to retrieve their luggage that is stuck inside the overhead bin. A lot of these carry-on items are never weighed and could easily add up especially when people are packing everything they can into carry-on to save on baggage fees.
In Soviet Uzbekistan, airlines weigh you. Oh, wait...