Stand on the scales, please

To Save Fuel, Airlines Find No Speck Too Small - NYTimes.com

This article explains what steps the airlines are taking to try and economise on fuel. Some of it I find hard to believe:

Up in the cockpit, Delta is studying whether it is feasible to divide the heavy pilot manuals required on each flight between the captain and first officer, so pilots are not toting duplicate sets of five or six books that each weigh about a pound and a half.

On the other hand if this is true:

“Every 25 pounds we remove, we save $440,000 a year,” Mr. McGraw said...

airlines in countries with significant populations of the obese must be really suffering! Why shouldn't airlines be offering cash back offers for passengers under the national average weight if they are willing to stand on the luggage scales before boarding?

UPDATE: at the risk of referring to the Colbert Report just a little too much, he covered this possibility in last night's show (which I saw after my post):



Also on that episode, he had an interview with a guy who has a book out on the 1950's "comic panic" in America. I had referred to this recently when talking about the Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis movie "Artists and Models". If the topic interests you, the interview is both interesting and funny. (You can find it at Colbert Report website yourself.)