Airline to weigh passengers before boarding to ensure 'safety'

Uzbekistan Airways says passengers would be weighed in airport departure zones and results would be kept secret

Uzbekistan Airways announced it will start weighing passengers and their carry-on luggage before boarding a flight to find out how much weight they would be adding to the plane.

"According to the rules of International Air Transport Association (IATA), airlines are obliged to carry out the regular procedures of preflight control passengers weighing with hand baggage to observe requirements for ensuring flight safety," the airline’s statement reads.

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The airline further added that passengers would be weighed on scales in airport departure zones and assured that the results would be kept secret. "The weighing record will only contain the corresponding passenger category (male/female/children). As for the rest, full confidentiality of results is guaranteed."

However, according to CNN, an IATA spokesperson denied having any knowledge of such a regulation. "We are not aware of an IATA rule concerning the weighing of passengers and their hand luggage prior to flight. All airlines have policies in place for load calculations, weight and balance of their aircraft. These policies in turn are subject to the rules and regulations of their national aviation regulator,” said Chris Goater, manager of IATA corporate communications, via email.

So far, Uzbekistan Airlines has not made it clear whether overweight passengers would be penalised or not. However, if it did decide to charge extra, it would not be the first time. Samoa Air, has a pay-as-you-weigh fare structure, which it introduced in 2012.

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Chris Langton, Samoa Air chief executive told CNN in 2013, "The next step is for the industry to make those sort of changes and recognize that, 'Hey, we are not all 72 kilograms [about 160 pounds] anymore and we don't all fit into a standard seat. What makes airplanes work is weight. We are not selling seats, we are selling weight."

This article originally appeared on CNN