Add some amount of walking to your pre-flight routine.
New Zealand’s national airline is asking passengers to weigh themselves after checking in international flights from Auckland International Airport.
Air New Zealand intends to weigh 10,000 passengers during the month-long survey. But these numbers aren’t flashed at levels where everyone can see them, the airline promised, and remain anonymous even to employees.
This is part of a requirement by the Civil Aviation Authority, the country’s industry watchdog, to help calculate the weight and balance of planes before take-off.
“It’s a regulatory requirement that we know the weight of everything that goes on the plane, and there’s a good reason for that,” said Alastair James, an aircraft load control development expert.
“To fly safely and efficiently, we need to be able to calculate the weight and balance of the aircraft every time we fly,” he said.
James added that passengers “have nothing to worry about. There’s no weight shown on the screen, anywhere, it’s captured and goes straight into the computer.”
They put their luggage on a scale to be weighed separately.
This is not the first time that the airline has asked passengers, customers on domestic flights have been asking for weight for a few years now.
While the poll was overwhelmingly supportive in New Zealand, some American citizens expressed their concerns about privacy and physical discrimination on social media.
John Cox, an NBC News aviation expert, said the methods and data collected by Air New Zealand were important and could bring “broad benefits” to the world.
“Air New Zealand and the New Zealand regulators are really helping the industry…you may see some other airlines using it in the future.”
The survey will begin this week and continue till July 2, the airline said.
