Tiny Samoa Air was the first airline to charge passengers based on weight, and now, the company is creating a special “XL class” for larger passengers.
The controversial “pay what you weigh” airline is now creating a wider row on its aircrafts to comfortably seat passengers who weigh more than 130 kilograms (286 pounds). The new row gives larger passengers an extra 12 to 14 inches of space, alleviating the discomfort large people often face when sitting in small airline seats.
“Quite often the access is difficult, and even the space between the seats is enough that even when you’ve squeezed into the seats there’s no room for your legs. That’s where the XL has come in – we do it with shirts and clothing and other things where we have different standard sizes,” Chris Langton, the airline’s head, tells Business Insider.
Samoa Airline’s efforts to accommodate larger passengers make sense in Samoa, a country with one of the world’s highest rates of obesity. When flying on the airline, passengers pay a fixed price per kilogram for themselves and their luggage that varies anywhere from about $1 to $4 per kilogram, depending on the length of the route. Samoa Airlines seems to believe other carriers will follow suit and soon develop similar methods of calculating rates for passengers.