I don't fly much these days, mainly because I never know whether my plane is being flown by a pilot, co-pilot or auto-pilot. That's a problem for me because these days the pilot is usually busy having photo ops with his proud mom and dad in the cabin, the co-pilot is busy bashing down the washroom door with a lady passenger inside, and the auto-pilot is probably a bunch of algorithms coded by a young nerd in Gurgaon who's mad about getting only a 2% annual increment and has a grudge against everyone. Now, which sane person would get on to a plane in the hands of these three entities? So I prefer to be highway robbed by Mr. Gadkari and his toll plazas.
But on the occasional flight I am forced to take I always encounter an unusual form of discrimination which no one appears to have noticed. Now, I weigh 60 kgs on a good day, which can go down to 59 kgs on days when I do not get my favourite repast, the Delhi Gymkhana mutton cutlets. However, such days are rare since my sister-in-law, Anjali, makes sure that this supply chain works seamlessly. To get back to the point, however, my weight makes me a lightweight in a country where 40% of the population will be obese by 2030. And this is no country for lightweights.
You are not considered successful in life if you don't have a cantilevered pot-belly. On buses or metros you are invariably compressed into a corner and denied your fair share of space. One invariably gets shoved to the back of any queue Ms Sitharaman decides to put one in. Ladies think you lack in testosterone and therefore not worth their time. Insurers consider you a bad risk and double the premium. But it's the airlines with whom I have my major grouse because their baggage rules discriminate against lightweights like me.
Most airlines allow about 20 kg of checked-in baggage on economy class; anything more and you pay through your e-nose for the extra baggage, an average of Rs. 600 per kg. So if I'm carrying 5 kg extra, I have to shell out Rs. 3000. Fair enough, you might say? But hold on. What is my total WTA (Weight To Airline)? 85 kg. (My weight 60 kg+free baggage 20 kg+ extra baggage 5 kg.) Compare this with the the Great Khali like hulk behind me in the queue: he weighs 120 kg and his luggage weighs 20 kg. His WTA is 140 kg, compared to my 85 kg, 55 kgs more- but here's the catch- he walks aboard without having to pay a paisa, while I paid 3000 bucks even though my WTA was 55kgs less than his ! There has to be something wrong here, right? Isn't this institutionalising and rewarding obsesity at the cost of those who labour to remain trim and supple?
Weight plays an important role in the flying cost of a plane, and airlines are constantly devising ways to cut down on the weight. According to one leading European Aviation magazine an aircraft which performs five flights a day, each round-flight of 1140 kms, would save 6240 kgs of fuel every year costing US$ 4200 for every kilogramme of weight reduction! Why do you thinks the cabin crew (airhostesses in the days when we called a gal a gal) are usually girls? Why do you think one now gets fewer magazines on flights? Why do you think the cutlery is plastic and not metal? It's the weight, stupid: a girl weighs 20 kgs less than a man on average, so just this gender preference can shave about 200-250 kgs off the weight of an aircraft. The same logic drives the cutlery and the magazines. Therefore the question: why should airlines not apply the same principle and logic to passengers' body weight? Why should they not move to a "Pay as you Weigh" policy? Airlines should calculate the TOTAL weight associated with a passenger- what I have termed WTA- and not segregate the body weight and the luggage weight, charging only for the latter and not the former. Fix a consolidated permissible weight, say a reasonable 90 kgs for both flyer and his luggage, and charge for anything in excess of that. Why give the fat cats a free pass at the cost of the slender, Mr. Bean types like me?
This would revolutionize air travel and be a win-win for all concerned. The airlines would make oodles of money and would not have to convert their washrooms into paid Sulabh Sauchalayas, or introduce standing-only flights; the horizontally challenged would now have an incentive to move towards the vertical plane; those who cavil at this or refuse to change can travel by Royal Caribbean or Norwegian, which may be a good thing after all: we may see a return to the good old days of the ocean liners, which would be a boon for the environment.
My suggestion is not as far-fetched as it sounds, you know. Airlines are beginning to see the light and count the millions they are losing by carrying excess lard free of cost. US airlines have now started requesting XXL passengers, who are likely to overflow into the next seat, if not the next plane, to buy a second ticket or deboard. The day is not far off when the XL types too shall be charged by weight, and we scrawny types shall finally get our day in the sun, if not the metro.
Airlines do care about weight because it affects fuel burn, but pricing is not calculated per kilogram. Their business runs on revenue management — selling the same seat at different prices depending on demand, route and timing. If they switched to a “Pay as you Weigh” model, they’d lose flexibility and customer trust, without gaining much efficiency.
ReplyDeleteThere are also practical and legal hurdles. Publicly weighing passengers would slow boarding, raise privacy issues, and invite lawsuits for discrimination. The industry gets around this by using average passenger weights for flight planning, which balances out across a full cabin. The baggage allowance system is a simpler, less controversial way of handling load.
Finally, the examples of U.S. carriers asking very large passengers to buy an extra seat are about comfort and safety, not weight economics. Airlines make far more money from add-ons like baggage fees, seat selection, meals, and dynamic pricing than they would from penalising passengers by the kilo. That’s why a WTA (weight to airline) system, however witty, won’t take off commercially.
Neat Sir!
DeleteMr. Sahu has effectively squeezed the humour out of a perfectly mirthful blog, and replaced it with a murmur of instructional dissent. In the process, he has deadened a droll passage to a dull, didactic brochure. While most of us are massaging our ribs to ease the pain from the tickling levity, Mr. Sahu detects material flaws in the script and leaps to correct them with his pedantic skills, honed over time to pedagogical perfection. Evidently satire is not his favoured poison; give him instructional writing in paragraphed brochures and the good man will curl up on his couch to an evening of bliss.
ReplyDeleteA limerick exists for him:
There is a man named Mr. Sahu,
who refuses all mails from Yahoo.
It is not a rumour,
that he disapproves humour,
and all that’s ha-ha and hu-hu.
Not his fault. Mr Sahu is so focused on defending this regime that he has no intellectual space left for appreciating satire, humour or the lighter side of life. He covers his pedantic regurgitations with a thin but suspect layer of faux gravitas which does not stand scrutiny. A worthy successor to Brother George who has, thankfully, abandoned this site. Can I hope to be lucky a second time?
ReplyDeleteI did understand the humour — the satire was well-crafted, and I enjoyed the wit. My response was not to miss the lighter side, but to engage with the underlying argument you cleverly raised. Satire often works best when it rests on a kernel of reality, and I chose to explore that reality from the aviation industry’s perspective.
ReplyDeleteIf that comes across as “pedantic”, I’ll happily plead guilty — because I believe even in banter, ideas deserve to be tested. Otherwise, we risk letting the wit escape without examining the wisdom inside it. 😊
So please don’t mistake earnest engagement for lack of humour. I take satire seriously precisely because it’s an art that provokes thought as much as laughter.
I am copying here comments on this blog sent to me (on my email) by Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar, ex-diplomat, author, self-confessed maverick and ex-Union Minister:
ReplyDelete"My father, who was killed in an air accident when I was just over 12, was an avid flyer and so even as a child I had flown 11 times before my father went down. We would usually take off from Safdarjung airport (not Palam) and each of us would be weighed before passengers and baggage were boarded. So, your novel proposal is not that far from honoured precedent. Please tell that to Mr Sahu.
As for what happens in the flight cabin, my favourite story is of a passenger hearing on the tannoy that the flight is being piloted by Capt. Mary, the co-pilot is named Jane and the navigator is Jill. At this point, he rises from his seat, summons the cabin crew and says, “This I must see, take me to the cockpit” and a crew member coughs and says, “I’m afraid, Sir, we don’t call it that any
more!” "
I'm sure readers will find it both interesting and amusing!
Hahaha...to be sure ! However, the first time (in a history of many flights with and without wings) we tore through SE Monsoon clouds toward a barely visible runway nose first before suddenly levelling out to hit what then was exclusively a Mig 21 possession in a place called Bagdogra with rude force, Mustafi and I had little to do but grip hands tightly trying not to think of two little children up home in Darjeeling.
DeleteSomehow the 737 braked to a stop lurching forward and back. There was dead silence in the cabin until the air hostess plucked up wig and composure to thank us for flying and wishing us a happy day on behalf of the Captain, a lady. Then among the first in the country of such intrepid calling. It did nothing to relieve the silence as we filed thoughtfully out.
These days of course women pilots are all the rage. And of course the cockpit is no longer referred to as such. But that was then. A daring entry into a man's, er domain, it was thought.
It was like Matthew Arnold rebuffing P G Wodehouse.
ReplyDeleteMr. Shukla, you had suggested that I mistook satire for serious argument. But clearly I was not alone. Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar — a seasoned flyer, diplomat, and author — has also responded in earnest, citing his own childhood experiences of passengers being weighed at Safdarjung airport. That shows the idea does invite real engagement, beyond humour.
ReplyDeleteMy earlier comments were precisely in that spirit — to examine why airlines today do not follow such a system. Satire rests on a kernel of reality, and both Mr. Aiyar and I chose to engage with that reality. So, far from lacking appreciation of humour, my response took your wit seriously enough to test its substance. If that comes across as “pedantic”, I can only plead guilty with a smile.
Mr. Sahu is certifiably bereft of humour. His tank is empty with a leak. What's more, as a pedant he resolutely clutches at his reality kernel, whatever that is, and is inexorably weighed down by it. As to his measure of satire, he is achingly incognisant of that element of writing. It is no wonder that he feels Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyer has come to his aid gallantly, and helps revive him when all of us evildoers have pummeled him in. Whatever, Mr. Sahu draws others to read his incredible comments and ejects from them a variety of impulses. Not least from Mr. Shukla, whose blogs he butchers pedagogically, perhaps making Mr. Shukla roll his compact 59 kilos - or 60 on the days he’s chomped his mutton cutlets - agonisingly from wall to wall.
ReplyDeleteWhen words gush out like a leaky hydrant, you know the message has struck home—if not the funny bone, then at least a nerve. Nothing sets the rhetorical clock ticking like a well-aimed jab.
ReplyDeleteThe air hostess point blew my mind
ReplyDeleteHumour is not a cake walk. The subtle n serious concern lies in betwee.
ReplyDeleteBetween
ReplyDeleteI admire both Messers Sahu and Patankar. Intercession is not required, especially between Avay Shukla and these, his two erudite friends. May they, each, these three, live long enough to plague the rest of us to feel hunted.
ReplyDeleteThe guised roast through the Trojan Horse of flattery is called out! Though why a wordsmith should feel plagued on his own fairground is baffling. If the cake is not stepped on before the party begins, there will be no need to intercede. Be neither weary nor wary, O ye who feel hunted…was that the reason for the hiatus?
Delete