Overweight Americans cause airlines to burn more fuel and raise air ticket prices

• Weight gain is a well-known problem for people who want to live long and healthy lives, but who would ever think that it would affect the health of the airline industry?
• According to a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it does.
• In a recent issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the Atlanta-based federal agency said that bigger luggage is not the only thing weighing down airliners and causing them to burn more costly fuel.
• In fact, the CDC said, the average weight of Americans increased by 10 pounds during the 1990s -- requiring an extra 350 million gallons of jet fuel to fly them around during 2000.
• Put another way, that's about 2.4 percent of the total volume of jet fuel used domestically that year, and it cost airlines an extra $275 million to transport what the CDC called "this additional adiposity."
• Dr. Andrew Dannenberg, one of three authors of the CDC report, said in an interview Thursday that the agency was trying to focus public attention on the problems of weight gain.
• Airlines having to spend more on fuel, he said, "was looked on as an unexpected consequence."
• Dannenberg noted that overweight passengers on airplanes pose no sort of threat to safety.
• But Jack Evans, spokesman for the Air Transport Association of America, which represents the major U.S. airlines, said weight is a real issue.
• "Every bit of added weight increases the amount of fuel you're going to be burning," he said.
• 'For that reason, he said, airlines in recent years have bumped metal forks and spoons, replacing them with plastic, and have ditched bulky magazines.
• Southwest Airlines of Dallas requires large people to buy a second seat, citing safety and comfort of the other passengers.