Q24N – Take off your shoes. Take the keys out of the pocket. Get on the scale? The New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority asked its national airline to notify passengers departing on international flights from Auckland International Airport until July 2, 2023.
“Passenger weight survey” is the new way of collecting data on the cargo and weight distribution of aircraft, the airline explained.
Basically, they’re weighing everything that goes on the plane – including passengers and their bags – to get data on the weight distribution of flights. But don’t worry, they’re keeping your weight private – it won’t appear on the agent’s screen.
“We weigh everything that goes on the plane: from cargo to onboard meals to luggage in the hold,” Alastair James, the airline’s cargo control enhancement specialist, said in a statement. “For customers, crew, and cabin bags, we use average weights, which we get by doing this survey.”
Travelers will be asked to step on a digital scale when checking in for their flight. The weight information will be sent to the survey. The luggage is placed on another identical scale to weigh it separately.
“We know that stepping on a scale can be daunting. We want to assure our customers that there are no screens visible anywhere. No one can see their weight, not even us,” says James.
Among the people who may be asked to participate in the survey are those traveling on the direct flight from Auckland to New York’s JFK airport.
This 17-hour flagship flight was implemented last fall as the lynchpin of the airline’s post-pandemic strategy. It is also one of the longest flights in the world.
This isn’t the first time Air New Zealand has pulled this kind of thing – domestic passengers were surveyed in 2021, and the international survey was postponed due to the pandemic.
