I am currently planning a few long haul flights, and part of that process has involved looking closely at the various baggage allowances offered by different airlines. I have mentioned this before, but baggage policies seem to be increasingly unfair on people like me.

I mean people who are not fat.

Why I should I have the same baggage allowance as the portly chap sat in front of me? He weighs more than me and my 23kg allowance put together, so where is the financial justice in us paying the same amount to cross the Atlantic?

It is bad enough if you have to sit next to one on the actual flight itself, but knowing that you have also subsidised their trip is beyond a joke. Plus they probably steal your in flight meal when you are not looking.

How hard would it be to come up with a system where we take the average weight of passengers (85kg according to Google – or 13 and a bit stone in UK money), add 23kg, and then allow passengers to use that weight as they see fit.

I might choose to take some extra clothing, books or even a set of dumbells. Fatty may decide not to leave his man boobs at home.

We could even have some form of offsetting market in weight allowances, with skinny people selling off their extra kilos to the rotund travellers. If it can work with carbon emissions, surely it could work here?

OK, it might be seen as being a little bit fattist, but we picked on the smokers and now people are giving that up left right and centre.

I mean, it is clear that being hideously unattractive is not enough to make them lose a few pounds, so maybe a hit in the wallet each time they fly might be enough to make them take the stairs every now and again?

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