Aviation
Our Big Size A Burden To Airlines
It's costing thousands of dollars in lost revenue
| Like many of the world's airline giants, many of the South Pacific's mostly
one-jet, government-owned airlines are struggling financially. But according
to the Association of South Pacific Airlines (ASPA), there's one burden
its members have to contend with which rarely bothers wide-bodied jet operators
like United or British Airways. Pacific Islands passengers are on average
not only the heaviest but also the widest of airline customers.
Their hefty physique clutters narrow airline passenger ways and costs tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue since seats on a Boeing 737 jet, the regional workhorse, are left empty to comply with takeoff weight restrictions.
"We have to allow 92 kilogrammes per passenger rather than 77 kilogrammes," said John Fitzgerald, chief executive of Polynesian Airlines, the national airline of Samoa, whose inhabitants like other parts of Polynesia, tend to be massive. - ADVERTISEMENT - Out of Honolulu we are restricted on a 154-seat aircraft travelling south to I think 132 passengers, a revenue loss of thousands of dollars. We allow for large passengers by taking out the centre arm rest at the back. We used to provide two business class seats for the King of Tonga. But he's lost quite a bit of weight and now occupies only one. "On a full aircraft a small passenger can be handicapped by a very heavy passenger next to him or her, and that can be a bad experience. They hang over everyone and quite frankly it inhibits movement up and down the aisle by our cabin crew. Some people are just too huge."
Andre Lavigne, chief executive of neighbouring American Samoa's Samoa Air, said the natural bulk of Samoans cost the airline's 20-seater Twin Otter up to four lost seating places. In many instances, we require seat belt extensions and our passengers require two seats. "There are so many social implications that you cannot possibly charge them for more than one seat." A European Union project to equip Pacific Islands airports with metal detectors was delayed by more than a year by a bureaucratic wrangle at the European Union (EU) headquarters in Brussels over the width of the frame passengers walk through. The EU wanted islands airports to accept the international point-eight of a metre standard. Islands airport managers said unless the width was at least one metre many islanders would be unable to squeeze through. Capitulating finally, the EU complained: "Pacific Islanders are the widest airline passengers." |
