In Flight Fat Tax..

We continue to be bowled over by Ryanair's brilliant skill for self promotion. Their latest headline grabbing offering is how they are considering charging a 'fat tax' after more than 30,000 passengers voted in favour of charging excess weight fees for very large passengers.

Their online poll, which is a pretty neat way of gathering customers email addresses, asked the public for cost reducing ideas. Even now, it's hard to write this blog as it is so blatenly a PR stunt. But what ever..

It seems nearly 30% of the public polled were in favour of excess fees for overweight passengers with the charge taking one of the following formats:

~Charge per kg over 130kg/20 stone (male) and 100kg/15 stone (females)
~Charge per inch for every waist inch over 45 inch (male) and 40 inch (female)
~Charge for every point in excess of 40 points on the Body Mass Index (+30 points is obese)
~Charge for a second seat if passengers’ waist touches both armrests simultaneously.

On a personal note, as one that has regularly crammed the entire contents of a suitcase into a small carry on to avoid the usual commotion at check in, one should consider if in fact, there is a grain of truth here. Why should we have weight restrictions on our bags when the passenger next to us is carrying the equivalent of two carry-ons around their stomach?