Airline to weigh passengers pre-flight.

South Korea's flag carrier Korean Air will begin weighing passengers and their carry-on luggage at Gimpo and Incheon airports. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation has required the checks to collect actual passenger weights for aircraft weight-and-balance calculations. Airline officials say measuring passengers helps crews calculate load distribution, takeoff performance, and fuel needs more accurately than relying on assumed average weights. Officials emphasize it is about technical calculations, not personal data collection.

The weighing will take place for a limited period at each airport and is being presented as a safety measure. Passengers who do not want to be weighed can opt out; the ministry and airline say anonymized averages will be used for those travellers. Similar trials, such as Air New Zealand’s, are cited as improving safety and operational efficiency and could reduce fuel use by replacing estimates with real measurements.