MasterCard could estimate passengers’ weight for airlines based on what they buy

By A.W. | WASHINGTON, DC

FIRMS must tread lightly around the subject of their customers’ weight. It is a sensitive subject for many. Still, a lot of organisations would like to be able to size up those who use their services.

MasterCard, a credit-card company, has filed a patent application for what it describes as “a system, method, and computer-readable storage medium configured to analyse the physical size of payment accountholders based on payment transactions, and allowing a transportation provider to apply the physical size of payment accountholders to seating”. In plain English, the firm plans to estimate its customers’ size and weight based on their clothing and shoe purchases. It could then transmit this information to airlines (and other transportation providers, such as rail and bus companies) which might use it to assign seats.

Exactly how airlines would deploy this information is not known. In its application, MasterCard takes a charitable interpretation, writing that “for the comfort of their passengers, transportation providers should avoid seating physically large strangers next to each other”. (Indeed, the most optimistic possible conclusion would be that airlines would follow the model of Air Canada’s policy of giving an extra free seat to obese passengers who present a doctor’s note.) But overweight flyers who have encountered discrimination or inconvenience in the air will fear more nefarious uses.

They have plenty of reasons to worry. A group of Samoans recently filed complaints with the U.S. Department of Transportation after Hawaiian Airlines began weighing passengers in order to distribute their heft evenly around the plane—but only on the route between Honolulu and American Samoa. (Samoans have among the world’s highest rates of obesity.) Another recent patent, filed by European aircraft manufacturer Airbus, would create aeroplane seats of changeable width, so that people with greater girth can pay extra to gain a wider seat.

Using customers’ purchases to estimate their size might seem a convoluted method, when airlines already ask for all sorts of personal information about passengers. MasterCard’s patent application notes that “potentially, transportation providers could simply ask passengers their physical size,” but adds, “People are unlikely to accurately report their actual size. For example, some individuals purposefully represent that they are lighter than they are. (‘I weigh less than 100 pounds.’) Others exaggerate their size. (‘I am six-foot-four-inches tall.’)”

The patent application was actually filed in 2015, but it was spotted last week by Skift, a travel-news site, which noted that the application became public earlier this month. Of course, lots of patent applications are filed without ever being acted upon, so there is no reason to expect that MasterCard will start conveying cardholders’ size to airlines anytime soon.

In fact, Skift also recently rounded up the most novel airline patents of 2016, and it is immediately apparent why so many never become reality. British Airways filed an idea for “digital pills or other ingestible sensors that detect internal temperature, stomach acidity and other internal properties,” which the airline would use to tailor the meal schedule, temperature regulation, and other services to passengers’ needs. That seems hard to swallow, but other patents could alter the flying experience in small but beneficial ways. One aeroplane-seat manufacturer came up with a plan to add airbags to business class seats. Another, from United Airlines, wanted to limit loudspeaker announcements by sending gate notifications to passengers’ phones. Nobody is likely to protest against those moves. MasterCard’s would weigh more heavily on passengers sensibilities—if it were ever actually enacted.