I am by no means a Slim Jim but I had the unfortunate experience of having to sit next to a very large woman, on a flight back from Boston a few years ago. It was terrible, for her and me. The plane was full, so I wasn't able to move to another seat. I spent about 3 hours standing at the back of the plane, near to the toilet, just to be able to breath properly.
Large people have my every sympathy but when you are that size everybody else seems to suffer.
Although this person weight was caused by an accident I totaly agree that there should be a Human weight charge, they should be charged on the same basis as your cases.
Some airlines boast about their roomy fore and aft seat pitch interval, but don't tell you what their seat widths are. I've been on a BA flight lasting over 9 hours, Heathrow to the Caribbean, with a 16½" seat width, yet their Aberdeen to Heathrow connecting flight had 18" wide seats. That extra 1½" made for quite a difference!
this incident http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Midwest_Flight_5481 was a wake-up call for the airline industry, which had always previously estimated human weight based on a figure that was woefully inadequate for today's demographic.
JNO, that airline flight crew are thought to be "minted" is largely a misconception. Whilst senior staff working for flag-carriers will be on a good remunerative package, most staff flying for budget carriers will be on zero hours contracts.
I think that most UK airlines still work on the basic principle of average adult male weight being 85 Kilos (13stone-ish), and average adult female weight being 70 kilos. Given the supposed trend of increased obesity, I think they may have to recalculate in the not too distant future!
The crash Mushroom's link is about, I have seen a programme on Air crash investigation about that.
I can't say anything for this poor passenger but once (long time ago) I was travelling on a local transport in my birth city (Lahore, Pakistan). We were two friends. My friend was very big and I used to be very skinny. Ticket man asked us to pay for two tickets for my friend. I shut him up by saying that if he were to charge like that then what about me? He should let me travel for free as I was very skinny. And he agreed.