Five percent allowance results in more weight for aircraft

I REFER to the letter “Give five percent allowance for baggage” (The Star, Aug 31).

I am not a pilot or one who is licensed to manually prepare a load sheet for a departing flight.

But having worked closely with the aviation industry in the AsiaPacific since 1987, I can safely say that giving the five percent allowance for each passenger’s baggage would mean additional weight for an aircraft.

Taking an average of an additional 1kg per passenger for a full flight on an Airbus 330-300 would mean an extra 300kg to the take-off weight of the aircraft.

Technology has advanced such that the aircraft load and balance is currently done by highly sophisticated software.

But in case of system or computer failure, a manual load sheet is prepared which requires extra effort to ensure pin-point accuracy.

The maximum weight of the different sections of the aircraft with the fuel are used to calculate the traffic load, which is the payload allowed, and prevents exceeding any of the maximum weights.

The distribution of load is critical and not the amount that is loaded onto the aircraft.

The maximum take-off weight will include trip fuel (i.e fuel burnoff for the flight).

Hence, the five percent allowance for baggage could be critical to the maximum take-off weight of the aircraft as it allows the pilot to analyse the trim and calculate the centre of gravity.

The maximum landing weight of the aircraft is equally important.