Trend Expands: European Airlines Considering Passenger Weighing

Finland's national airline, Finnair, announced that it will consider weighing its passengers on flights departing from Helsinki Airport.

  (photo credit: INIMAGE)
(photo credit: INIMAGE)

The trend expands: Finland's national airline, Finnair, announced this week that it will start weighing its passengers on flights departing from Helsinki Airport.

The airline justified this unusual step by stating that it will help assess the weight of the aircraft before takeoff. However, it is important to note that this step indeed assists, although it is a questionable claim, as all airlines use estimates for passenger weights.

Finnair also mentioned that the weighing of passengers is for the purpose of improving flight safety and not to charge passengers above a certain weight, as the entire process is anonymous and the names of the weighed passengers are not registered.

The airline announced that it will continue implementing the plan until May, and then send the data to the Finnish transportation agency to report on balance and loading calculations for aircraft from next year until 2030.

As a reminder, Finnair is another airline that has announced this step after airlines such as "Iranian Airlines," "Hawaiian Airlines," and "Air New Zealand" did so for a limited period last summer.