Ryanair To Start Charging Passengers By Weight
Senior management at Ryanair have confirmed that the price of a seat on one of their flights will soon be directly linked to the weight of the passenger buying it. The new pricing policy will be introduced next month and will apply to all Ryanair flights throughout Europe.
The airline had considered introducing the ‘fat tax’ several years ago but the idea was scrapped, so why have they decided to bring it in now? We asked Public Relations Manager James O’Connor.
“People are getting fatter, that’s why.” he told us. “Have you seen some of the specimens boarding flights lately? You’d wonder how the planes manage to get off the ground.
“The heavier the load, the more fuel a plane burns. It’s that simple.” Mr. O’Connor continued. “Fuel costs money. As well as that, the matter of weight distribution on an aircraft has become a serious issue lately. Incidents of planes leaning to one side are far more frequent these days as people continue to balloon in size so when allocating seats it’s vitally important to spread chubsters evenly around the aircraft.”
As expected the new pricing policy has proved to be controversial and caused outrage among many people including some civil rights groups.
Militant overweight support group The Fat Panthers held a protest march down O’Connell Street in Dublin yesterday. They had intended to march to Trinity College and hold a rally there but none of the marchers managed to make it that far.