An American airline recently asked a female passenger, who was overweight, to step onto the baggage scale to weigh herself and then decide if she could board the plane or be barred from doing so. This strange incident met with the disapproval of fellow passengers who witnessed the event, prompting one of them to record it in a short video and share it on social media.
The incident ignited widespread outrage among travelers and internet users. No other airline had previously required a particular weight or denied obese individuals from boarding flights.
A report published by the British newspaper “The Independent”, said that a traveler named Lillian captured the incident, photographed it and posted it on social networks, and wrote a comment saying: “This behavior left us in a state of shock, me and the rest of the passengers, after the staff asked The lady should stand on the luggage scale because she may be overweight.”
@lilwessel It’s a tiny plane so they needed our weight to take off for safety reasons🤦🏼♀️ #fyp #pedropascal #travel #CapCut ♬ New Home by Austin Farwell – GetByBus
The passengers were told, “The airline said at the time that it had to know the weight of the passengers, because the plane was small, and this measure was for safety reasons.”
The video sparked many criticisms around the world, as the video was watched on “Tik Tok” by more than 1.6 million people, and the followers expressed their annoyance on behalf of the woman at this situation, which some described as “insulting.” One person commented, “It seems that the airports are really out of control,” while another said: “This is so insulting, my God, what is this?”
One follower claimed that airlines taking weights of individual passengers was “illegal,” while another recounted owning no shame after having their weight requested on a trip from the Philippines to the States.
Others criticized the traveler who filmed the woman being weighed and published the clip without her consent, as one of the commentators wrote: “You should all stop taking pictures of strangers and posting them on the Internet, it is strange and disrespectful,” while another said, “taking a picture of her and publishing it On the Internet it seems bad manners.”
