Please have your passport, boarding pass, and, oh yeah, your waist measurements ready before boarding the aircraft.
That requirement may be in the offing for passengers of discount airline Ryanair if the company decides to impose a "fat tax" on obese travelers.
The Dublin, Ireland-based airline that made headlines recently for its idea of charging passengers a pound to use the plane restrooms said a fat tax may help cut airline costs and save other passengers money.
More than 100,000 people responded to Ryanair’s online poll on cost-reduction measures, with 29 percent voting in favor of a fat tax.
Twenty-five percent of respondents voted to charge travelers 1 euro to use toilet paper adorned with a picture of Chief Executive Officer Michael O’Leary’s face and 24 percent voted to charge passengers 3 euros to smoke in a converted toilet cubicle.
Some U.S. airlines already assess extra fees or have policies regarding obese passengers.
And United Airlines is now bumping severely obese passengers from its sold-out flights, an April 16 Chicago Tribune article reported. Passengers who are too big to fit in a single coach seat on United are now required to buy two tickets on the next flight or upgrade to a larger seat in business class if a flight attendant can’t find two open seats together.
The Tribune also reported that Delta Air Lines’ policy is to put overweight passengers next to empty seats, but if that is not possible, it allows those passengers to purchase an extra seat on the next flight for the lowest fare available.
Now that Ryanair’s fat tax idea has garnered broad support in the online poll at www.ryanair.com, the airline is soliciting ideas until Monday on how to implement it.
The tax could be assessed based on four factors: Men with waistlines over 45 inches and women with waistlines topping 40 inches would be taxed; passengers would have to pay for a second seat if their waist touches both armrests simultaneously; and men would pay more if they weigh more than 286 pounds and women if they weigh more than 220 pounds.
The airline has suggested charging passengers for every point in excess of 40 points on the body mass index, with a +30 being obese.
"The above four points seem to us to be the simplest, fairest and administratively easiest to apply," Ryanair’s Stephen McNamara said in a press release. "In all cases we’ve (set) limits at very high levels so that a fat tax will only apply to those really large passengers who invade the space of the passengers sitting beside them.
"These charges if introduced might also act as an incentive to some of our very large passengers to lose a little weight and hopefully feel a little lighter and healthier."
But whether a fat tax would be legal in Ireland — the country that regulates the airline — remains uncertain.
The Irish Aviation Authority said such a tax would not affect aircraft safety, so it doesn’t have a problem with it. But the Equality Authority of Ireland points out its legality could hinge on how the country’s Equality Tribunal rules on a current case.
That case involves an overweight person who was charged more for insurance.
If the tribunal decides obesity is a disability, then a fat tax could be challenged on that basis, said Brian Merriman, head of communications for the Equality Authority, which is representing that person in the case.
