Damned Friggin Right, Says the Thin One
BBC – Australia airline ‘fat tax’ urged
A leading Australian nutritionist has urged airlines to charge obese passengers more for their seats.
Screw the nutritionist angle, do you know how much it costs to fly over there? Hell they should charge people by the ounce. Like the mail does. I’d show up at the airport with my swimsuit and passport stuffed in a back pocket and my Hello Kitty towel over one arm, ready to buy all the sun screen I’d need when I get there.
November 14th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Token sandals. You can’t forget the token sandals. The security drones need to have you remove something, and with token sandals you’ll have something they can ask you to remove. Without those sandals you’ll have to remove something, and that’ll be your bathing suit most likely.
(Why “token sandals”? Because their sole purpose is to let security make a token effort at screening something for something.)
November 14th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Exploding Hello Kitty towels FTW.
November 14th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
We’d have to come up with a formula based on the nominal weight per passenger as the base price, then the variation (either up or down) would be calculated from so many cents per pound.mile (or kg.km). So, if one (with baggage) were 10 pounds under the nominal, and going on a 1000 mile flight, then the cost reduction would be W101000, where the ‘W’ value would have to be worked out, and vice-versa.
More potential for arguments at the check-in line. As if we needed that.
November 14th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Hmm. Sandals are doable. They don’t add much weight.
People are used to waiting in line at the post office. Truckers are used to waiting in line for the scales. Home owners are used to getting weighed at the dump. People will adapt. And why should you have a base price? I’m already outraged enough that my 2 petite costs the same as a 14 tall. You could upholster my couch with the difference in fabric between the two. This is my chance to finally have my own back! Power to the shorties!
(Btw, my Hello Kitty towel rocks)
November 14th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
Pointers
I show not the picture. I but run the headline link — Giant Inflatable Vagina Dentata, Tentacles Writhing — and move along. [Update: Not enough for commenter Ghagdad who notes, “It’s great to live in a country where a giant vagina dentata with tentac…
November 14th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
Some people don’t even fit in economy class seats. They have to be put in business class. I don’t know whether or not they have to pay the difference. They should have to.
November 14th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
As a fiscal conservative, the word tax makes me nervous. But I wouldn’t be opposed to a rule that if your girth spills over into your neighbor’s seat, you have to pay half his ticket.
November 14th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
They used to make fat people pay for two seats (besides, it’s dangerous, the weight distribution) but then they got sued for being mean.