A few days ago Continental Airlines announced it would be shrinking its luggage allowance. While perusing this article, I thought of pricing at movie theaters.
Movie theaters price matinee tickets uniformly - if you go to a movie on a Friday night, you'll shell out $10 whether you're seeing The Dark Knight or XXX2. I'd consider seeing XXX2 if it cost less than The Dark Knight.
For airlines, you pay the same amount no matter your weight. I can think of a few girls that pay the same for a plane ticket as I do, even though they are at least 20 kilograms lighter than I am (with luggage, though, we probably cost the same to fly).
Why do you think movie theaters and airlines have flat pricing? A "pay per kilo" model would probably insult airline's overweight customers, though $15 must make a big difference when we're booking plane fare. I'm waiting for the "pay per kilo" airline. You'd buy a ticket with a weight allowance, and pay extra if you and your luggage (together) are over this weight.
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I suspect the reason that bags are weighed and limited is more about handling and liability and less about airplane weight. (An interesting data point.)
What's the benefit of doing it by the kilo? Perceived increase in fairness? If that's the gain then I would also point out that even if you pay more for your seat than I do on the grounds that you weigh a bit more, we still get the same amount of legroom (which happens to be well suited to me and my 5'5" height and less so to you), airplane staff cost is still the same between us, the cost of using the airline terminal and security and whatnot is the same between us -- I think "pounds lifted and moved" is a surprisingly small fraction of actual cost/received services of air travel. Would you also be interested in charging by the pound for taxi rides?
(p.s. insert snarky 8.01 comment about *weight* allowances in kilos here.)
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