Time to tax the fat

This week Emirates Airlines announced its new A380s would drop in-flight magazines, and dump foot rests on economy to save a few kilograms. So far, however, no one has said anything about ejecting supersized passengers.

However with airliners finding it increasingly difficult to retain their profitability, a ‘fat tax’ is surely the logical next step.

So far, society at large has reacted with hostility when airlines have mooted the possibility of replacing a flat rate ticket in place of per kilogram passenger fee. But they should not listen and press on regardless – it would benefit everyone.

You may now be choking on your second helping of sticky toffee pudding. But calm yourself down, breath deeply, have a digestive and let’s just think things through.

The idea not to charge passengers by the weight presumably comes from two factors.

Firstly, in the past fuel was relatively cheap and hence the need to get to the minutiae of weight to fuel ratios not so compelling to an airline industry desperately trying to remain in the skies and in the black.

This is no longer the case.

The second reason passenger weight has not been discussed before is the perceived unfairness of it. Why should someone be punished for being taller and ten kilograms heavier than the man, or woman, sitting next to them? It’s a fact of nature – beyond their control.

This is the meat and two veg of the issue, and aside the bad PR, why airline companies have not rushed to implement a system perceived to be unfairly punitive.

However, let’s get real: protecting ‘unfairness’ and papering over difference, is massively inefficient, and unfair in its own way. Someone, somewhere is going to have to pay for my ‘excess baggage’ even if I do not.

Let’s just assume for the moment that in your case any excess weight you may have is a clinical condition, and not a love of cheese.

This applies to 0.5% of the overweight out there, but it is still a statistically relevant number. You are being penalised for something that you have not done, nor had any control over.

This is undoubtedly harsh – and poor you. However the fact remains. You are heavy/big boned/overweight or just large – accept it, and move on.

We are not egalitarian when it comes to anything else in life that is a given – such as intelligence. Aside a few lonely Marxists out there, no one anymore believes my superior/inferior wage based on my superior/inferior abilities is in anyway unfair.

The belief that everyone should be paid the same regardless of their abilities and/or contribution has long since been abandoned as impractical and, worse, destructive.

So why should we be so sensitive and egalitarian when it comes to bone density, fat and height, but not be when it comes to the amount of neurons we have firing upstairs? This is equally inefficient, and equally destructive.

At the moment, the small and skinny are – unfairly – paying for my love of a midnight snack, in multiple ways. They are paying too much for their airline seat – they are subsidising mine, and they are paying the indirect cost of pollution – all that extra burnt fuel in the air needed to carry me around.

They are paying for my greater propensity towards heart disease, and the burden I place on the world’s health system…

I could go on, but I am sure you get the point. At the moment there is no incentive for me, no invisible hand, to guide me in the right direction – away from the fridge and the pudding.

I am however paying a price. I can get away with being overweight without being made to realize the true cost of being so. That is doing my waist line, and heart, no good at all.

It is time we realized being fair is unfair, allowed market forces to get to work, and in so doing make the world a better, and fitter place.

Now pass the biscuits.