Obesity, saving money and flying

There was an interesting article about Frontier Airlines in the Denver Post today. The headline read,

Frontier finds its fliers lighter than average

The sub-head read,

The Denver-based airline saves about $3.5 million a year in fuel because of a difference of 17 pounds per passenger.

Evidently, the Federal Aviation Administration tracks the average weight of airline passengers and that data is able to be broken out by airline. Frontier Airline passengers are, according to the FAA, about 20 pounds lighter than average. Frontier was intrigued by the data so they went out and did their own study and narrowed the number down to a more precise 17 pounds per passenger.

And that works out to $3.5 million per year in savings. That's not bad.