However, passengers have the right to refuse this request from South Korea's second-largest airline, Asiana Airlines. The airline's passenger weighing plan starts today, January 22, and lasts until January 31, and applies to international flights departing from Gimpo International Airport in western Seoul, according to the Korea Times .
Standard weights are used to distribute the weight of the aircraft and enhance operational safety.
More and more airlines weigh passengers
Asiana Airlines also weighed about 5,000 passengers on domestic flights in December 2023. Another South Korean airline, Korean Air Lines, also weighed passengers last August.
In the Southeast Asia region, some airlines in Thailand have also implemented a passenger weighing program in October 2023.
The passenger weighing measure initiated allows airlines to check and calculate standard and average passenger weights. The data collected will help airlines distribute weight more efficiently on international flights, contributing to reducing aircraft fuel consumption, while improving service efficiency in accordance with safety standards. All data collected is kept strictly confidential.
However, airlines’ practice of weighing passengers has not always been well received. Last May, the US press was in an uproar when a video was shared of a female passenger being forced to step on a scale “like a luggage scale” before the plane took off.
Passenger weighing sign at Auckland Airport, New Zealand recently
The video garnered nearly 2 million views on social media at the time. Many criticized the airline for discriminating against plus-size passengers, calling it a “humiliating measure.” However, many supported it, arguing that small planes should be required to weigh passengers for takeoff for safety reasons.
Regarding passenger weighing, Shem Malmquist, a lecturer at Florida Tech Aeronautical University, explains: "Airlines use average passenger weight, but people are getting much heavier. 300 people heavier than average can cause a plane to be significantly overweight, while all performance calculations such as runway length, altitude, obstacles, landing distance... depend on weight."
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