Woman gets weighed at airport on scale used to weigh luggage for ‘safety reasons’
Published
| Last updated
When heading to the airport for that summer holiday you've been waiting all year for, you expect your luggage will be weighed to ensure you have not exceeded the baggage limits.
It is also a good indication of how accurate those ten-year-old scales you use back at home are.
However, this one airline passenger was horrified after one of her fellow passengers was asked to step on the scales used to weigh bags.
Even worse, this was done in full view of all the other passengers, making it a rather uncomfortable experience for many.
A clip of the incident was uploaded to TikTok in March, and amassed some 1.6 million views before it was later deleted.
The video sparked a lot of concern that airlines may be discriminating against plus-size passengers.
The short clip simply shows the passenger step onto the scales where the bags would typically go.
It was accompanied by the caption: “The whole airport trying to mind their own business as a woman is asked to step on the baggage scale because she claimed she was 130lbs."
While the video was up, it garnered a lot of attention, with many coming to the passenger's defence and saying that she should not have been weighed in front of everyone else.
Some even took to the comment section to recall their own experiences, with one person writing: "Flying home from the Philippines and they weighed me … I have never been so embarrassed in my life.”
Meanwhile, others gave their opinions on what they had saw in the viral TikTok.
"Why would they need her weight...? or is this a US thingy?" one person asked.
And a second added: "That’s not ok."
TikToker Lillian Wessel (@lilwessel) went on to explain why the woman was weighed.
She said the plane they were boarding was a particularly small one, and this essentially meant the aircraft had to seat people in the cabin to make sure that it was balanced, as it wouldn't be able to deal with the difference like a larger aircraft.
"It’s a tiny plane so they needed our weight to take off for safety reasons," the TikToker explained.
The video comes as airline Air Zealand asked passengers to take to the scales as part of a survey they were required to carry out.
The measure caused some controversy, but representatives reassured customers that getting onto the scales was entirely voluntary, and their weight would not be displayed.
