A traveler has shared the mortifying moment that a fellow passenger was forced to step on a baggage scale before takeoff after confusion over her weight.
A clip detailing the humiliating measure was originally posted in March, but has amassed 1.6 million views on TikTok as viewers speculate whether the airline was discriminating against plus-size travelers.
“The whole airport trying to mind their own business as a woman is asked to step on the baggage scale because she claimed she was 130lbs,” the TikTok user @lilwessel wrote in the caption. She added, “It’s a tiny plane so they needed our weight to take off for safety reasons.”
Needless to say, the embarrassing ordeal divided the TikTok commentariat with one viewer writing: “Why are people so mean.”
“That’s not ok,” said another.
Meanwhile, a third remembered being victim to a similar precaution, explaining, “Flying home from the Philippines and they weighed me … I have never been so embarrassed in my life.”
However, others sided with the airline. “Why would she lie and risk all our lives including hers lol,” criticized one commenter.
“They care about weight limits on small planes because they need to have the center weight in a certain part of the plane,” said another.
“Does she not know she can write it down on a sheet of paper if she doesn’t want to announce it?” observed a third. “What my mom does lol.”
This comes amid a whirlwind of body-positive influencers complaining that airlines do not accommodate plus-sized people.
Earlier this week, a plus-size TikToker went viral after arguing that airlines should make plane aisles wider to cater to larger passengers, calling the present situation “discrimination.”
She also shared a now-deleted video of herself agonizing to pass through a United Airlines plane, having to turn sideways as she walked past the rows of seats.
The body-positivity advocate was afterwards critisized online with critics telling her not to fly. One even challenged that wider aisles would reduce the number of seats, thereby “cutting into profits to accommodate the supersized.”
In 2021, the Federal Aviation Administration advisory announced that airlines could soon demand plus-sized passengers to step on the scale — or provide their weight — prior to boarding the aircraft.
The goal was to provide new information on average passenger weights as the present numbers reportedly don’t demonstrate today’s sky-high obesity rates in the US.
In turn, this would help establish that aircrafts, particularly the small ones, don’t go over their permitted weight cap.
Once they’ve chosen a traveler, an operator may “determine the actual weight of passengers” by having them step “on a scale before boarding the aircraft,” per the guidelines transcribed by AirInsight.
In order to protect passenger privacy, they concluded “the scale readout should remain hidden from public view.”
Honestly, airlines should go back to having obese people buy 2 seats 💺 like they use to. There’s weight restrictions on airplanes. Seriously, I don’t want the airplane ✈️ to crash. I feel discriminated when I sit in the middle of 2 obese people. 🙄😕 👑🐝 #factassin pic.twitter.com/kCpjqaauWN
— Murphy’s Law a.k.a. the Queen Bee (@aka_theQueenBee) May 19, 2023
American activists argue that airlines should make aisles on planes wider so as not to discriminate against fat people.
PS – Why lose weight when you can make the doors wider.😂#USA #Airline #Bodyfat #Helath
(https://t.co/QiL16R62PS) pic.twitter.com/UQ9EmaDB8l
— The Story Teller (@I_am_the_Story) May 19, 2023
Planes have to fuel for the weight of cargo. Maybe airlines should have ticket prices stratified so that different weight ranges cost different. Should a dwarf pay as much for a ticket as she does?
— MoreGunsLessCrime (@EndAllGunLaws) May 18, 2023
