Air New Zealand to Objectify its Customers

In an apparent bid to alienate passengers and bring about the alacritous demise of the island nation’s national airline, New Zealand’s Civil Aviation Authority has prevailed upon Air New Zealand to weigh passengers departing on international flights from Auckland International Airport (AKL) through 02 July 2023.

Among the people who may be asked to take part in the survey are those traveling aboard the airline’s direct flight from Auckland to New York City’s JFK Airport.

The 17-hour flagship route launched last fall as a core facet of Air New Zealand’s post-pandemic strategy. By way of bringing flight operations to a swift and certain end, Air New Zealand’s persistence in the practice of demeaning air-travelers by standing them atop a scale—after the fashion of delicatessen purchases—is apt to prove at least as effective and immediate as COVID.

To veil its debasing nature, Air New Zealand has coined a euphemism, referring to the self-destructive initiative as a “passenger weight survey" undertaken for purpose of helping the airline gather data critical to aircraft weight-and-balance.

Air New Zealand load control improvement specialist Alastair James stated: “We weigh everything that goes on the aircraft, from the cargo to the meals onboard, to the luggage in the hold. For customers, crew, and cabin bags, we use average weights, which we get from doing this survey.”

In point of fact, modern airliners know how much they weigh. They know their empty weights, they know how much of their weight, at any given time, comprises fuel. Ergo, if, as Mr. James states, Air New Zealand weighs cargo, stores, and luggage, the business of determining the average weights of the airline’s passengers is a matter of rudimentary mathematics.

That either New Zealand’s Civil Aviation Authority or Air New Zealand is veiling an ulterior motive is an unattractive but defensible supposition.

The air-carrier has assured the flying public that passengers’ weights will be kept strictly confidential and all values will remain anonymous. Air New Zealand sets forth that as passengers check in for their flights, they will be asked to stand on a digital scale. Their weights—which the airline asserts will not be viewable on gate agents’ screens—will be recorded and submitted to the survey.

Passengers will also be asked to place their luggage on an identical scale for discrete weighing.

Mr. James added: “We know stepping on the scales can be daunting. We want to reassure our customers there is no visible display anywhere. No one can see your weight, not even us.”

The 2023 survey occasions the second instance in which Air New Zealand has collected data on passenger weight. The airline’s domestic customers were made to participate in a similar survey in 2021.

FMI: www.airnewzealand.com