The airline actually polled its passengers on whether or not to institute the tax and more than 30,000 said seemed like a nifty idea. I can't imagine how this will actually play out. Can you imagine the sheer embarrassment of having to share your wait with a ticket agent on the phone? When a rather large person steps up to the counter, is the ticket agent then going to ask them to step on the baggage scale, too? Is it going to be like buying alcohol? Maybe they will have a sign at the front of the counter reading, "If you look like you are over 230 pounds, please step on the scale or show us a doctor's note with your actual weight." Will this be discriminatory against tall people as well, who weigh much more than their shorter counterparts? Or will there be a HWP chart with specific weight requirements? (I myself have been indulging myself in the beer and chocolate area a little more recently and would hate to see where I would fall under that chart.)
I can understand not wanting to have a 500-lb passenger sitting next to you, but shouldn't they have the same rights? Otherwise, where do you draw the line? Should there now be an "annoying tax" for overtalkative passengers on long flights or a "baby tax" for parents who travel with crying infants? Personally, I would like to see a "noisy Mp3 player tax", but this might be a ways off into the future and difficult to enforce.
RyanAir has come out with a statement about not wanting to delay passengers with the fat tax. I am not sure what this is referring to. Are they predicting that angry customers will come up to the counter yelling and screaming and thus delaying the flight? Or does it rather refer to the extra work involved in weighing the cattle, oops, I mean passengers.
The last time weight played such an important part in commerce was perhaps the slavery era, which did not go so well. It's hard also to forget the lessons of Shylock in a pound for pound of flesh.