Why this airline is asking to weigh passengers before flying

After a woman went viral for sharing that she was forced to step on a baggage scale before boarding her flight, Air New Zealand announced that they will begin weighing passengers before some international flights.

The airline announced Monday that it will be asking more than 10,000 passengers to take part in a weight survey beginning in June.

“The survey is essential to the safe and efficient operation of the aircraft and is a Civil Aviation Authority requirement,” Air New Zealand wrote in a statement.

The survey will calculate passengers’ average weight to help the planes fly more efficiently while also remaining balanced.

People traveling through the airline’s domestic network were weighed in 2021, and now that international travel is spiking again post-COVID-19, they want international travelers to participate.

“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,” Air New Zealand load control improvement specialist Alastair James explained in the statement.

The survey — which will take place at the entrance of certain Air New Zealand flights departing from Auckland International Airport between May 29 and July 2 — is anonymous and voluntary.

“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! It’s completely anonymous,​” James said. “It’s simple, it’s voluntary, and by weighing in, you’ll be helping us to fly you safely and efficiently, every time.”

However, some American passengers shared on “TODAY” that they did not like the idea of being weighed before a flight.

“I think that’s a violation of privacy,” one person said.

“When I go to the doctor, I don’t even look at the scale, so I don’t want that out there in public,” another added.

A clip of a woman being asked to step on a baggage scale, which was originally posted in March, has amassed 1.6 million views on TikTok, with viewers speculating whether the airline was discriminating against plus-size travelers.

“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,” TikTok user @lilwessel wrote in the caption.

She added: “It’s a tiny plane so they needed our weight to take off for safety reasons.”

In the accompanying five-second footage shot at an undisclosed airport, the passenger in question can be seen standing on the luggage scale in full view of fellow flyers.

The embarrassing act divided TikTok, with one viewer writing: “Why are people so mean.”

Another recalled being subject to a similar precaution, explaining, “Flying home from the Philippines and they weighed me … I have never been so embarrassed in my life.”

However, others sided with the airline, with one customer questioning, “Why would she lie and risk all our lives including hers lol.”

“They care about weight limits on small planes because they need to have the center weight in a certain part of the plane,” said another.

In 2021, the Federal Aviation Administration advisory announced that airlines could soon require plus-size passengers to step on the scale — or provide their weight — before boarding the aircraft.

The goal was to provide new data on average passenger weights, as the current numbers reportedly don’t reflect today’s sky-high obesity rates in the US.

In turn, this would help ensure that aircraft, especially small ones, don’t exceed their allowable weight limit.

Once they’ve chosen a traveler, an operator may “determine the actual weight of passengers” by having them step “on a scale before boarding the aircraft,” per the guidelines transcribed by AirInsight.

In order to protect passenger privacy, they stipulated, “the scale readout should remain hidden from public view.”

However, the regulatory agency backpedaled a month later, claiming that while weighing passengers was an option, most airlines would resort to other measures of calculating passenger mass.

Contingency methods included making “a reasonable estimate about the passenger’s actual weight and add 10 pounds,” per the document.

NBC News aviation expert John Cox said on “TODAY” that he believes other airlines could implement a weight survey in the future.

“It’s critically important for the safety of flight that you know how much the airplane weighs — it’s particularly certificated to perform in a given way at a given weight,” he said.