An airline has taken a controversial decision to weigh people before allowing them to board a plane.

Uzbekistan Airways has announced that all passengers will have to stand on weighing machines with their personal luggage after they have checked in.

The company, who are based in Tashkent, have promised not to reveal the weight of individual passengers. But it will mean some overweight people could be excluded from busy flights on smaller planes if limits are exceeded.

Officials of Uzbekistan Airways have said that some overweight passengers will be excluded from busy flights

Special weighing machines have been set up in the departure gate zones to weigh people and their hand luggage.

Passengers will be put in three categories - men, women and children.

The company said they needed to know the weights of both people and their luggage because it was important, especially with smaller planes.

In a statement they said: 'Uzbekistan Airways airline is carrying out the procedure of pre-flight weighing in order to determine the average weight of passengers with hand luggage.

'According to the laws of the International Air Transport Association, airlines are obliged to carry out regular procedures of pre-flight control such as weighing passengers with hand luggage in order to observe the requirements for ensuring flight safety.

'After passing check-in on a flight and prior to boarding into the aircraft, we will ask you to pass the weighing procedure with a special weighing machine placed in the departure gate zone.

'The weighing record will only contain the corresponding passenger category (i.e. male/ female/ children). As for the rest, the full confidentiality of results is guaranteed.

'We appreciate your assistance and thank you in advance for the help in the solution of our common task of flight safety.'

If weight limits are reached on board the planes, heavy passengers could be kicked off (file photo)

Samoan Air became the world's first airline to charge passengers according to their weight in 2013. This helped manage its on-board weight effectively and enabled costing plans to be more streamlined.

Under the pay-by-weight system passengers input their weight into the online booking section of the Samoa Air website.

Passengers can also add their baggage weight on - there are no separate fees because of excess baggage.

Samoa Air flies domestically and to American Samoa - it is thought the move could encourage other airlines to introduce similar policies.