Columnist Susan Snyder: Observing the girth of flight

Tuesday, May 20, 2003 | 8:17 a.m.

Evidently, we're fatter, and so is our luggage.

The Federal Aviation Administration last week raised its guidelines for average weights of passengers and checked bags. The passenger is now figured to weigh 190 pounds (clothes, loaded pockets and all), and the checked bag is estimated to weigh 30 pounds.

This increase of 10 pounds per person and five pounds per bag stems from the Jan. 8 crash of a commuter flight in North Carolina, the report says. Although that investigation has not been completed, preliminary results raised concerns over the manner in which load weights are calculated.

Amazing. Security restrictions have forced many of us to pack less, yet we weigh more. Maybe we're eating too many Cinnabons after arriving at the airport two hours before departure.

But a little extra weight can be pitiful for things that fly. I recall watching a wildlife worker release a golden eagle she had raised after it was orphaned as a days-old hatchling. She had taught the bird to hunt in a huge aviary, but it didn't have enough flying time to work off what it ate.

After a few failed starts, the tuckered little raptor heaved itself about 15 feet into the air, fluttered over a berm on the horizon and plopped to the ground. She said it would run off the extra pounds in a few days.

When we pack those extra shoes, that "just in case" outfit and that extra bathing suit, we fail to note that if all 300 passengers did the same, it'd be like adding an extra rat or two to the eagle's diet.

Perhaps we all should fly in small planes once in a while. I know I'll not forget the encounter a photographer and I had as we flew from Elko to Reno on a dual-prop plane after an assignment a couple of years ago.

We had just finished researching discord between U.S. Forest Service workers and residents and figured the scariest parts of the trip were over when we climbed aboard the little winged commuter vessel.

All but three seats were occupied by very large firefighters who had attended a weeklong seminar at a training center near Elko. Their gear duffels, stuffed under seats, strained at the zippers. Sorta made you wonder what was in the baggage compartment.

Granted, photographers carry more gear than a family with three sets of twins. And none of it is lightweight.

Granted, I'd rather fly on the back of an overweight eagle than in an airplane where every seat has a window and each wing has a propellor. I don't like seeing propellors turn one at a time before takeoff. I want everything that moves spinning its little brains out.

The remaining three seats were occupied by the photographer, me and an airline pilot flying to work. He carried one small briefcase.

Snow had delayed our arrival in Elko days earlier, and it threatened to do the same for our return home. As we watched snow falling on the one spinning prop, the flight attendant whispered to the pilot seated one row ahead.

"We're over weight. The captain wondered if maybe you could take a later flight," she said.

Our life and death hung in the balance of a skinny guy who traveled with clean underpants and a toothbrush.

It's enough to force a gal to travel with only four pairs of shoes.