The holidays are in full swing and people are shopping, wrapping and packing to visit loved ones.
The holidays are in full swing and people are shopping, wrapping and packing to visit loved ones. Along with the extra fees for checked baggage and seat upgrades, some airlines are also considering weight-based pricing. A recent study out of the University of New Hampshire looked at how people felt about weighing their baggage and themselves to help reduce emissions and found while over half of travelers are not keen about hopping on the scale, some would be open to the idea — especially if it aligns with their own interests in the environment.
“We wanted to explore how air travel could be made more sustainable, especially considering the weight we carry — both personal weight and baggage that often travels back and forth,” said Markus Schuckert, professor of hospitality management. “We wondered if reducing weight overall could contribute to more eco-friendly air travel and began questioning whether passengers might accept pricing that reflects this.”
In their study, recently published in the journal of Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, researchers surveyed over 1,000 U.S. air travelers to gauge their view on three potential fare policies that provided a more sustainable flying option. The heavier the aircraft, the more jet fuel it burns and the more carbon emissions are produced so they devised a tier approach — a standard policy where all passengers pay a uniform price; a threshold policy where passengers exceeding a certain weight pay additional fees; and a unit-of-body-weight policy where each passenger’s airfare is based on their combined body and baggage weight.
Read more at University of New Hampshire
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