AUCKLAND (Pacific Media Watch): Samoa Air has recorded more than 90 million hits after being the first airline in the world to introduce a system where the passenger's air fare is harmonised with weight.
Samoa Air chief executive Chris Langton said he had done at least 30 interviews on the pay-by-weight policy, according to the Samoan news website Talamua.
The news came out at the start of this month and attracted interest from media all over the world.
Reputed news organisations, such as The Washington Post, The Guardian and Al-Jazeera, have all reported on it.
During the last few years, Samoa has come to world attention a few of times.
In 2009, the country shifted driving directions from the right to the left side of the road, and a destructive tsunami hit the country. In late 2011, Samoa shifted to the other side of the date line, going from being the last country to see sunrise in the world to the first.
Happy executive
Despite garnering some negative comments about the highly unusual policy, Langton does not mind all the media attention Samoa Air has received recently:
“We’ve known these things since we started to fly but it’s literally the elephant in the room as far as the CEO’s and execs (of airlines) are concerned. Well… now they are going to have to explain themselves and they have no argument to put.”
According to Langton, the pay-by-weight system has come to stay:
“I think it’s fantastic! The fare system is now officially ‘the Samoa Air system of pay by weight’. The pay by weight is definitely here to stay and it seems that people are recognising the benefits and where it will take air travel long term.”
Samoa News has a slightly different opinion. They jokingly suggest Samoa Air should rather call it ‘weigh to go’.
Weight problem
It is probably not a coincidence that Samoa was the first country in the world to introduce a pay-for-weight policy.
According to a 2007 Forbes article, just over 80 percent of the population of Samoa is obese. In American Samoa three of four adults are defined as obese.
Being obese is defined as having a BMI index of 30 or more. A 1.80m tall man weighing 100 kg, for instance, has a BMI index of close to 31 and would be defined as obese.
Policy to be replicated?
Although the Samoa Air policy has been ridiculed by some news organisations, it is not impossible that a similar arrangement will be tried out other places.
In an article in the Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, Norwegian academic Bharat P. Bhatta suggested introducing a tax for the overweight when flying.
Bhatta admitted to Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet that it is a controversial suggestion, but claims that it makes sense.
Today the extra cost of transporting overweight passengers is paid by lighter passengers. Furthermore, the heavier a passenger is the more fuel the airline will have to use.
Bhatta therefore suggests one of three alternatives:1. let the passengers pay by the kilo; 2. have a set price for the air fares and let passengers either pay an extra cost or get a discount depending on their weight, or 3. separate air fares in three classes – light, normal or heavy.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 New Zealand Licence.
Daniel Drageset
