Air New Zealand apparently conducted a survey last month (June 2023) in which they weighed passengers at boarding, with the intent of validating their models for W&B calculation. This was published as a voluntary, anonymous survey with no pricing implications.Link
It’s a somewhat funny topic because the average passenger weight will vary according to the destination. It will even vary according to which Greek island it is going to. Highest figures will be Mykonos, Zakynthos, Kos and others 
This is because different destinations, even within say Greece, market themselves to different, shall we say, demographics.
Take the weight of the passenger with all their carry-on baggage – no “fat shaming” possible since the extra weight could come from the baggage. Everyone’s happy!
There would be no issue with “fat shaming” because only you will see your weight and the resulting ticket cost. I am sure the airlines will find ways… once a precedent is set somewhere.
I remember getting an Aurigny Air flight from Alderney to Guernsey in the Trislander about 25 years ago. They did just this. Weigh everything.
I remember because it was too heavy and they asked people to leave luggage behind and asked for volunteers to stay behind (it was the last flight of the day too).
From memory, they only asked to weigh everyone when they already believed it would be overweight. So they did their assumptions, and it indicated a problem, so then they weighted to see if the real weights solved the problem (which it didn’t).
Aurigny
Those Channel Islands operators were always right on the margin
Operationally too; scud running at “500ft” over the sea. Same on the Scilly Islands run.
I am not surprised they were weighing people. But in those days, say 1980, Brits were probably 20% lighter.
Peter wrote:
the average passenger weight will vary according to the destination
Yep, that’s why FAA circular AC 120-27F [local copy] on aircraft w&b control considers, accepts and specifies how to do surveys for Particular Routes, “if the operator believes that the average weights on that route may differ from those in the rest of its operations”.
“Interestingly”, if an operator chooses “actual weights” (rather than nation-wide standard average weights or operator survey-derived average weights), it can either weigh all passengers or ask the passengers their weight and in the latter case:
An operator should add to this asked (volunteered) weight at least 10 pounds to account for clothing. An operator should increase this allowance for clothing on certain routes or during certain seasons, if appropriate.
Yeah, 10 lb for clothing, and clothing only. As a minimum, in summer. Right.
Have you seen those coats with lots of pockets, inside and outside, specially for airline use? Hilarious.
Maybe the airlines will eventually start pricing passenger tickets like cargo, per kilogram of weight.
Unlikely, unless they think it is a massive money spinner. The main reason is that the limiting factor for passengers is the number of seats, while for cargo it is volume (for low-density stuff) and weight (higher-density stuff).
Hence cargo is charged by the higher of the actual weight and “volumetric weight”, and passenger by the person.
Airlines are quite good at pricing the same seat at vastly different prices, so if they can acceptably charge a “fat premium” they probably will – for example if you overspill into the next seat you have to buy it – but they certainly won’t give discounts to anorexic passengers, since they can’t take four anorexia patients instead of three healthy equivalent people.
