Ryanair are running a “survey” to let passengers decide what they will charge extra for on their flights and fat people are not going to be happy.
The survey is designed to help Ryanair decide what it’s next ancillary charge will be. Ryanair is just as famous for charging for extras as it is for its low flight costs. In February it announced that it was considering implementing a charge to use the bathrooms on-board.
The choices on the survey are:
- €1 for toilet paper – with O’Leary’s face on it,
- €2 “corkage” fee for passengers who bring their own food,
- €5 annual subscription to access Ryanair.com,
- €3 to smoke in a converted toilet cubicle,
- Excess fees for overweight passengers based on body mass index.
At the moment, there are 12,000 votes for excess fees for overweight passengers. The question I want to ask is why?
If you look closer at the questions you’ll notice that the first four options mention a price. If you’re a Ryanair customer you’re going to think that if you pick any of the first four, it’s going to end up costing you extra to fly.
On the flip side, people usually find it hard to recognise that they are medically over-weight. The last option then says to these people “it’s not going to cost me anything, so I’ll vote for that option.”
A persons Body Mass Index, (BMI), can be difficult to judge visually, as it’s linked to weight and height. Most people, when asked, would not consider themselves obese, but according to the BMI many of them would be. (You can check your BMI on the chart below.)
BMI - Check your height against your weight.
But even when your BMI is considered to be overweight it’s not necessarily so. The BMI is only considered a rough guide, being overweight can only be confirmed by measuring the amount of body fat. So if you’re young, old, infirm, or an athlete, the BMI is not going to be accurate.[1]
All of which means that there’s actually a larger number of medically overweight individuals flying with Ryainair than you think. So more happy days for Ryanair, less happy days for their customers.
If you wanted to “beat” the survey, which option should you choose? The obvious one is to pick the “€3 to smoke in a converted toilet cubicle”.
Why? Because there are a lot less smokers than non-smokers, smokers are used to not being able to smoke on an aircraft, and least of all, they’ll never be able to bring it in as it would breach the governments smoking in the work place ban.
So throw a spanner in Ryanair’s works and vote for the smoking option.
- Muscle is heavier than fat, so the more muscle you have as a proportion of your overall weight the higher your BMI will be. Conversely, if you are old or infirm, your muscle mass will be decreased in relation to your overall weight and you’ll score lower on the BMI scale while actually having a higher amount of body fat. [↩]