Why suitcases are weighed before takeoff, but not passengers: a pilot explains

That jitters before checking in for a flight is familiar to many – if the suitcase will exceed the airline’s allowed weight and if you will have to pay extra for overloading (and before that inevitable punishment, will you also have to try to redistribute the things between luggage, hand luggage and sometimes your own body).

Limits are set for a reason – an overloaded aircraft can easily lose control. Weighing is carried out in order to correctly calculate the mass of the so-called payload, which includes the mass of all passengers.

But after all, not a single passenger at the airport was forced to step on the scale before boarding! How does the airline know the weight?

It turns out that in aviation the standards were adopted with an average weight. Pilot Damir Yusupov, who shot to fame after heroically landing an emergency plane with 226 passengers and 7 crew on board in a cornfield in 2019, told his social media followers about it. All survived. Yusupov and co-pilot Georgy Murzin received the titles of Heroes of the Russian Federation, and the cabin crew received the Order of Courage. The story also served as the basis for the film “In the Sun Along the Rows of Corn”.

So how is the average weight of passengers on board calculated? According to aviation standards, the weight of an adult is 75 kg in summer and 80 kg in winter (the weight of clothes is also taken into account), a child from 2 to 12 years old – 30 kg, a child under from 2 years – 15 kg. Therefore, it is not necessary to weigh passengers separately.

After the check-in of passengers and baggage, the scale service has all the weight and dimension data to correctly distribute the baggage in the hold. And this information, in turn, is important for pilots to calculate take-off and landing characteristics.