LONDON: Not content with plans to scrap check-in desks, charge passengers for using toilets and clobber customers with a $44 charge if their duty free won’t fit into their hand luggage, Ryanair has hit on a new scheme for increasing revenue: a so-called fat tax for overweight travellers. In what appears as much a ruse to gain publicity as a serious policy, the budget carrier said yesterday it would impose an as yet undecided levy on passengers who weigh considerably more than average. The charge, which could fall foul of discrimination laws before it ever takes effect, was proposed following a poll of passengers on the airline’s website. It attracted more votes than other ideas, including a EUR1 levy to use onboard toilet paper, which would have the face of the airline’s famously pugnacious chief executive, Michael O’Leary, printed on it. The fat tax got nearly a third of all the votes. The airline now plans to poll passengers on how the charge should be calculated, with ideas including a per-kilo levy for all men weighing more than 130 kg and women more than 100 kg, or a fixed penalty if a passenger’s waist touches both neighbouring armrests at the same time. “In all cases, we’ve limits at very high levels so that a ‘fat tax’ will only apply to those really large passengers who invade the space of the passengers next to them,” said Stephen McNamara of the airline. “These charges, if introduced, might also act as an incentive to the very large passengers to lose weight.” Some US airlines already oblige very obese passengers who spill over into neighbouring seats to buy a second seat.