Is Weight-Based Pricing the Key to Sustainable Air Travel

When you think of airline policies, you might picture baggage fees or seat upgrades. But a recurring topic in the industry raises a different question: Could passenger weight play a role in ticket pricing as airlines explore ways to reduce emissions and fuel use?

While it's a polarizing topic, the idea of weight-based pricing touches on some key concerns for airlines - specifically, the balance between environmental impact and customer fairness. This concept has yet to gain traction with most airlines due to ethical concerns. However, some experts note that it may offer a pathway toward making air travel more eco-friendly.

Markus Schuckert, a hospitality management professor at the UNH Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics, and his former colleagues explored this issue by studying public attitudes toward weight-based airfare pricing. Their findings, published in the Journal of Tourism Research and Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, indicate that most travelers resist the idea, but some groups see it differently - especially if such policies align with their own interests.

"We wanted to explore how air travel could be made more sustainable, especially considering the weight we carry - both personal weight and baggage that often travels back and forth," Schuckert says. "We wondered if reducing weight overall could contribute to more eco-friendly air travel and began questioning whether passengers might accept pricing that reflects this."

Surveying Public Opinion on Weight-Based Airfare Policies

The researchers surveyed over 1,000 U.S. air travelers to gauge their views on three types of fare policies:

• Standard policy: All passengers pay a uniform price.
• Threshold policy: Passengers exceeding a set weight incur additional fees.
• Unit-of-body-weight policy: Each passenger's fare is based on their combined body and baggage weight.

The standard policy was the most accepted approach across all demographics, with more than half of respondents rating it as the most ethical option. Moreover, nearly 60% of participants voiced concerns about weight-based policies, citing potential fairness issues and the risk of discriminatory practices, especially as factors like nutrition, income and accessibility often influence body weight.

Who Supports Weight-Based Pricing?

Younger passengers showed more openness to weight-based policies. Among respondents aged 18-35, acceptance of weight-based pricing was 20 percentage points higher compared to travelers aged 66 and above. Additionally, travelers with higher incomes or frequent flyer status were 25% more likely to support weight-based policies than those in lower income brackets or who traveled infrequently.

Schuckert says the research isn't meant to be an endorsement of such policies, it just makes sense from a research perspective to investigate whether they offer a pathway to a more sustainable future for air travel - and if passengers would accept these changes.

"This topic has been widely discussed for decades, but there's surprisingly little research on it," Schuckert says. "Some airlines have tried or considered weight-based policies, but the main roadblock remains ethical concerns, which make it difficult to even discuss. But if we aim to make air travel more sustainable, we should have an open discussion. That's really the point of research - to put everything on the table for consideration."

What's Next? Broadening the Path to Sustainable Air Travel

Schuckert says the research findings highlight how societal norms can often oppose sustainable practices.

"In many areas, we encourage sustainability with a 'pay-as-you-consume' model, like a fee that increases with usage. But, when it comes to people, applying this idea is challenging," Schuckert says. "We hesitate to set prices based on individual characteristics because it feels discriminatory. The real question is how to design pricing that promotes sustainable choices without unfairly targeting certain customer segments."

Schuckert sees younger travelers' receptiveness to these policies as an encouraging sign. Even if weight-based pricing isn't the answer, he believes their forward-thinking mindset reflects the openness needed as discussions around sustainable transportation evolve.

Future research could explore alternative ways to incentivize lighter travel or new approaches to sustainability that avoid discrimination and support both environmental and social responsibility, according to Schuckert.

This research is co-authored by Lorenzo Masiero and Judit Zoltan, both from the University of Bologna, Italy; Denis Tolkach, James Cook University, Australia; Stephen Pratt, University of Central Florida; Matias Thuen Jørgensen, Roskilde University, Denmark; and Kaye Chon, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

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