PAGO PAGO, American Samoa -- A
tiny Samoa airline is offering a new reason to drop extra weight before your
next trip: Tickets sold not by the seat, but by the kilogram.
Samoa Air planned on Wednesday to start pricing its first international flights
based on the weight of its passengers and their bags. Depending on the flight,
each kilogram costs 93 cents to $1.06.
That means the average American man weighing 195 pounds with a 35 pound bag
would pay $97 to go one-way between Apia, Samoa, and Pago Pago, American Samoa.
Competitors typically charge $130 to $140 roundtrip for similar routes.
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Samoa Air planned on Wednesday to start pricing its first international flights
based on the weight of its passengers and their bags.
The weight-based pricing is not new to the airline, which launched in June. It
has been using the pricing model since November, but in January the U.S.
Department of Transportation approved its international route between American
Samoa and Samoa.
The airline's chief executive, Chris Langton, said Tuesday that "planes are run
by weight and not by seat, and travellers should be educated on this important
issue. The plane can only carry a certain amount of weight and that weight needs
to be paid. There is no other way."
Langton, a pilot himself, said when he flew for other airlines, he brought up
the idea to his bosses to charge by weight, but they considered weight as too
sensitive an issue to address.
"It's always been the fairest way, but the industry has been trying to pack
square pegs into round holes for many years," he said.
Travellers in the region already are weighed before they fly because the planes
used between the islands are small, said David Vaeafe, executive director of the
American Samoa Visitors Bureau. Samoa Air's fleet includes two nine-passenger
planes for commercial routes and a three-passenger plane for an air taxi
service.
Langton said passengers who need more room will be given one row on the plane to
ensure comfort.
The new pricing system would make Samoa Air the first to charge strictly by
weight, a change that Vaeafe said is, "in many ways... a fair concept for
passengers."
"For example, a 12- or 13-year-old passenger, who is small in size and weight,
won't have to pay an adult fare, based on airline fares that anyone 12 years and
older does pay the adult fare," he said.
Vaeafe said the pricing system has worked in Samoa but it's not clear whether it
will be embraced by travellers in the U.S. territory.
Langton said the airline has received mixed responses from overseas travellers
since it began promoting the pricing on its website and Facebook page.
Langton said some passengers have been surprised, but no one has refused to be
weighed yet. He said he's given away a few free flights to some regular
customers who lost weight, and that health officials in American Samoa were
among the first to contact the airline when the pricing structure was announced.
"They want to ride on the awareness this is raising and use it as a medium to
address obesity issues," he said.
Islands in the Pacific have the highest rates of obesity in the world. According
to a 2011 report by the World Health Organization, 86 per cent of Samoans were
overweight, the fourth worst among all nations. Only Samoa's Pacific neighbours
Nauru, the Cook Islands and Tonga ranked worse.
In comparison, the same study found that 69 per cent of Americans were
overweight, 61 per cent of Australians, and 22 per cent of Japanese. Samoa
ranked just as poorly in statistics measuring those who were obese, or severely
overweight.
Ana Faapouli, an American Samoa resident who frequently travels to Samoa, said
the pricing scheme will likely be profitable for Samoa Air.
"Samoa Air is smart enough to find ways to benefit from this service as they
will be competing against two other airlines," Faapouli said.
Pago Pago-based Inter Island Airways and Polynesian Airlines, which is owned by
the Samoa government, also run flights between the country and American Samoa.