5 ms·

Japan Airlines lays on extra plane after sumo wrestlers make too heavy to fly

31 points by zdw 3y ago

ggm 3y ago
Pacific Island communities have to do this because of pretty severe weight issues with light aircraft and (without over-stating it) some beyond XXL local residents. People get hinky, but I think I'd rather get on an aircraft which understood it's risk exposure to overweight than not. Whats utterly crap is the way large people are hounded into expensive seats on specious "it's your lifestyle" reasons: If aircraft seating dimensions cannot accommodate people then just like the ambulance services, they need to adapt to the weight profile of the community they serve. Remember: Flying is a fully regulated market. It's not actually just their business what the seat pitch is. Price is already sufficiently mutable that if they have to take a profit hit for larger pax, thats ok with me (I am not btw, a larger passenger) I have flown in craft where they asked us to move seats for takeoff because the loading map wasn't working out how they expected (code share can do that if too many people get specific seat allocations outside the craft operators control) and also been asked (once) to deplane with 40 or so others, so the 747 could taxi to the far slot on LAX, and then wait to have the tires cool, before we were bussed out to board on the runway. That was an experience: midnight flight out, screaming jets, those stairs and the lights vanishing off into the distance. There is something very "metal" about boarding a large aircraft on the tarmac close to launch, rather than at a gate or on the apron.
- langsoul-com 3y ago
  When I buy 1 plane ticket, I expect 1.0 of a seat. Not 0.7 seats, nor 0.9 seats. Exactly 1 seat, no overhang, no getting squished. No invading the seats airspace. Exactly 1 seat.
  - Sakos 3y ago
    Okay, and how do you define a seat exactly? Because what is a seat for one person is half a seat for another or two thirds of a seat for the airline. There is no universal definition for what a seat size should be, so your comment is just hot air and doesn't add to the discussion. Even more so when pricing is so malleable and disconnected from actual physical dimensions of the plane and its interior.
    - Kbelicius 3y ago
      > Okay, and how do you define a seat exactly? One seat on a plane is exactly one seat on the plane. This is not some abstract thing that is being talked about here.
      - teknolog 3y ago
        You're the one who said a wide person has to buy two seats in a comment above. Then we must define what the dimensions of a seat are to know what we're tealking about.
        Kbelicius 3y ago
        > Then we must define what the dimensions of a seat are to know what we're tealking about. Why? We are buying a seat, not inches. But since you insist, here: https://seatguru.com/charts/generalcharts.php https://seatguru.com/charts/generalcharts.php How does this information move the conversation forward?
        emmp 3y ago
        A seat consists of inches. And these vary on every airline. So yes you do need to know the inches to know how many seats to buy under your plan. In principle even an average sized person could be undersized on some theoretical airline with smaller seats -- the dimensions are key.
        Kbelicius 3y ago
        > A seat consists of inches. Yes, but you aren't buying inches but a seat on a plane so it is irrelevant. The original poster said that when he buys a seat he bought a whole seat, not 0.7 nor 0.9 of that seat. How does defining that seat in inches invalidates his point? > So yes you do need to know the inches to know how many seats to buy under your plan. In principle even an average sized person could be undersized on some theoretical airline with smaller seats -- the dimensions are key. Yes, when you want to fly it is good to know what size a seat you are buying but notice that you saying that in no way moves the conversation forward. And nobody claimed that knowing the size of seat in inches isn't important.
  - lawn 3y ago
    If you're twice the width compared to a regular person, then that's just not feasible.
    - Kbelicius 3y ago
      Then you need to buy two seats.
- jwilber 3y ago
  “Whats utterly crap is the way large people are hounded into expensive seats on specious "it's your lifestyle" reason” I disagree. Airplane tickets are expensive and the seats are already extremely cramped. If you don’t adequately fit in your seat, why should the person at your side have to suffer?
  - mjevans 3y ago
    Their point is that the seats are not sized to 'common people'. At the very least I'd say it's likely a not-small portion of American adults are larger than common airline seats want them to be.
    - acd10j 3y ago
      If airlines increase seat width to accommodate overweight, no of seating in aircraft will go down, which will lead to increase in per seat pricing, in effect healthy people will be subsidising overweight.
      - mjevans 3y ago
        No, even __bone structure__ width, shoulders, knees to hips. Airline seats seem sized to accommodate a hypothetical 'average' adult; not the maximum of any given dimension for a even a healthy adult.
        Lanolderen 3y ago
        It's probably more efficient to just get two neighboring seats, lift the arm rest and get a belt extension. Chasing maximum sized people seems inefficient. Imagine designing a plane with each seat having to fit someone like Brian Shaw.
        prmoustache 3y ago
        If you don't account for leg length, or lack of thereof which affect large people more than seat width, any not morbidly obese adult fit in an Airline seat. You may have a distorted view of what consist an healthy adult. And no people spending a lot of time lifting weight to grow muscles more than the typical crossfit athlete would are not healthy. They lose so much flexibility they can't do many simple thing, let alone scratch their back. The fact is there are many non healthy adults and the question is what do we do about them. Is flying a fundamental right? Should people with over the top obesity have to pay more to use 2 seats? Should large people have to pay extra or business class tickets to get a decent leg length?
- badpun 3y ago
  > Whats utterly crap is the way large people are hounded into expensive seats on specious "it's your lifestyle" reasons: If aircraft seating dimensions cannot accommodate people then just like the ambulance services, they need to adapt to the weight profile of the community they serve. Airlines, like other companies, serve their owners, not the community. If the community wants to compel the company to do something, they can do it via legislature.
  - ggm 3y ago
    Which is precisely what people are trying to make happen at the snails pace of the us justice system. Government being captive to the industry, using weak safety obligations as a get out clause. https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-court-hears-challenge-lack-rules-airplane-seat-size-2022-09-12/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-court-hears-challenge-lack-...
textadventure 3y ago
Sounds like what could be the setting for a Wes Anderson movie.
- ant6n 3y ago
  With lots of sideways panning camera action along the center aisle of the plane. I'm already humming the music from the Grand Budapest Hotel.
langsoul-com 3y ago
Wonder if they'll do what some airlines in USA do, people of larger weights need to buy 2 seats instead.
- bsaul 3y ago
  i've also never understood how a xxs clothes was the same price as an xxl one
  - defrost 3y ago
    Unit area material costs are small next to the costs of design, marketing, manufacture (where both extra large and extra small items take the same time to complete, have the same number of cuts and the same number of stitches -> same complexity of construction).
    - vsnf 3y ago
      > same number of stitches The only way I can see this being true is if a stitch in this context defined as a singular piece of thread used for attaching fabrics. Is this a common definition? In the common parlance I'm most familiar with, a stitch is one "in-and-out" of the thread. e.g., "I got 17 stitches across my forehead". In that context, I can't see how he large and small articles would take the same number.
      - shiroiuma 3y ago
        You're right, the number of stitches (and amount of thread for stitching) is necessarily going to be less for smaller clothes, but it's not very significant, unless you're comparing childrens' clothes to XXXXL.
      - defrost 3y ago
        Stitches as in "stitching actions" .. whether machine driven or hand driven there are motions required to line up a piece and stitch an arm to a body, to stitch and reinforce a neck loop, etc. These are the things that take up manufacturing time - and time and build complexity is a greater cost than mere thread or material, therefore the cost of a specific jacket (say) is dominated more by the design complexity rather than the area of material and length of thread between a small Vs a large.
SargeDebian 3y ago
> Mainoumi, who reached the top division in the 1990s, weighed about the same as the England rugby captain, Owen Farrell I wonder if Owen Farrell knows he's now a unit of measurement.
- elygre 3y ago
  The imperial units are getting out of hand.
- BigJono 3y ago
  That section actually has an error. "There's no minimum weight requirement to become a sumo wrestler", there is, it's 67kg. Though they're getting rid of it next year, probably because they've finally figured out that it's dumb for high school students to force feed themselves 20 big macs a day just to hit some arbitrary weigh in.
keiferski 3y ago
If you are interested in learning more about sumo, I highly highly recommend this article: http://grantland.com/features/sumo-wrestling-tokyo-japan-hakuho-yukio-mishima-novelist-seppuku/ http://grantland.com/features/sumo-wrestling-tokyo-japan-hak... I came across this a few years ago and just loved everything about it: the website design, the writing, the interweaving of Japanese literature and history.
js2 3y ago
> forcing JAL to lay on an additional service for 27 wrestlers I've never seen "lay on" used this way before, but from context I take it to mean they added another plane. According to Mirriam-Webster "lay on" is used by the British to mean "hire" (as in the opposite of "lay off") and I suppose this is a similar use. -- U.S. English speaker.
- pm215 3y ago
  as a UK English speaker I'm not sure I've ever heard "lay on" used to mean "hire" as M-W claims, and the OED doesn't seem to list that as a sense. The usage in this sentence is the sense the OED defines as: "To provide for the supply of (water, gas, etc.) through pipes from a reservoir; to provide (a telephone line). Hence, to make arrangements for, to provide (refreshments, entertainment, transport, etc.)" and which M-W defines more briefly as "provide, arrange".
  - hairywalt 3y ago
    The most common usage I can think of is "they laid on a great spread" which would mean a fantastic buffet was provided. Northern England native.
Ichthypresbyter 3y ago
I remember a story a few years ago where EasyJet had to take some passengers off a flight because it was overweight. In that case, it was because the passengers included a much higher than typical proportion of adult men and, as it was a flight from London to Geneva in winter, there was a lot of heavy winter sports equipment in the checked baggage.
hinata08 3y ago
There was a story like that a few years ago. An ATR42 on a commercial flight had to interrupt it take off above V1=VR, after the plane failed to rotate. Pilot suspected bad weather. BEA concluded to rugby team on board. They then made recommendations about how to sit these guests. It's only in French, unfortunately https://bea.aero/les-enquetes/evenements-notifies/detail/acceleration-arret-apres-la-vitesse-de-rotation-a-la-suite-defforts-superieurs-a-la-normale-sur-la-commande-de-profondeur/ https://bea.aero/les-enquetes/evenements-notifies/detail/acc...
mdrzn 3y ago
"the passenger lists included sumo wrestlers, whom they estimated weighed an average of 120kg – far more than the 70kg average, the Yomiuri said." Sheeeesh, an average of 70kg sounds low. But then again the average reported weight in the USA is 181 pounds, or 82kg, which ALSO seems low.

31 points by zdw 3y ago

ggm 3y ago

Pacific Island communities have to do this because of pretty severe weight issues with light aircraft and (without over-stating it) some beyond XXL local residents. People get hinky, but I think I'd rather get on an aircraft which understood it's risk exposure to overweight than not. Whats utterly crap is the way large people are hounded into expensive seats on specious "it's your lifestyle" reasons: If aircraft seating dimensions cannot accommodate people then just like the ambulance services, they need to adapt to the weight profile of the community they serve. Remember: Flying is a fully regulated market. It's not actually just their business what the seat pitch is. Price is already sufficiently mutable that if they have to take a profit hit for larger pax, thats ok with me (I am not btw, a larger passenger) I have flown in craft where they asked us to move seats for takeoff because the loading map wasn't working out how they expected (code share can do that if too many people get specific seat allocations outside the craft operators control) and also been asked (once) to deplane with 40 or so others, so the 747 could taxi to the far slot on LAX, and then wait to have the tires cool, before we were bussed out to board on the runway. That was an experience: midnight flight out, screaming jets, those stairs and the lights vanishing off into the distance. There is something very "metal" about boarding a large aircraft on the tarmac close to launch, rather than at a gate or on the apron.

langsoul-com 3y ago
When I buy 1 plane ticket, I expect 1.0 of a seat. Not 0.7 seats, nor 0.9 seats. Exactly 1 seat, no overhang, no getting squished. No invading the seats airspace. Exactly 1 seat.
- Sakos 3y ago
  Okay, and how do you define a seat exactly? Because what is a seat for one person is half a seat for another or two thirds of a seat for the airline. There is no universal definition for what a seat size should be, so your comment is just hot air and doesn't add to the discussion. Even more so when pricing is so malleable and disconnected from actual physical dimensions of the plane and its interior.
  - Kbelicius 3y ago
    > Okay, and how do you define a seat exactly? One seat on a plane is exactly one seat on the plane. This is not some abstract thing that is being talked about here.
    - teknolog 3y ago
      You're the one who said a wide person has to buy two seats in a comment above. Then we must define what the dimensions of a seat are to know what we're tealking about.
      - Kbelicius 3y ago
        > Then we must define what the dimensions of a seat are to know what we're tealking about. Why? We are buying a seat, not inches. But since you insist, here: https://seatguru.com/charts/generalcharts.php https://seatguru.com/charts/generalcharts.php How does this information move the conversation forward?
        emmp 3y ago
        A seat consists of inches. And these vary on every airline. So yes you do need to know the inches to know how many seats to buy under your plan. In principle even an average sized person could be undersized on some theoretical airline with smaller seats -- the dimensions are key.
        Kbelicius 3y ago
        > A seat consists of inches. Yes, but you aren't buying inches but a seat on a plane so it is irrelevant. The original poster said that when he buys a seat he bought a whole seat, not 0.7 nor 0.9 of that seat. How does defining that seat in inches invalidates his point? > So yes you do need to know the inches to know how many seats to buy under your plan. In principle even an average sized person could be undersized on some theoretical airline with smaller seats -- the dimensions are key. Yes, when you want to fly it is good to know what size a seat you are buying but notice that you saying that in no way moves the conversation forward. And nobody claimed that knowing the size of seat in inches isn't important.
- lawn 3y ago
  If you're twice the width compared to a regular person, then that's just not feasible.
  - Kbelicius 3y ago
    Then you need to buy two seats.
jwilber 3y ago
“Whats utterly crap is the way large people are hounded into expensive seats on specious "it's your lifestyle" reason” I disagree. Airplane tickets are expensive and the seats are already extremely cramped. If you don’t adequately fit in your seat, why should the person at your side have to suffer?
- mjevans 3y ago
  Their point is that the seats are not sized to 'common people'. At the very least I'd say it's likely a not-small portion of American adults are larger than common airline seats want them to be.
  - acd10j 3y ago
    If airlines increase seat width to accommodate overweight, no of seating in aircraft will go down, which will lead to increase in per seat pricing, in effect healthy people will be subsidising overweight.
    - mjevans 3y ago
      No, even __bone structure__ width, shoulders, knees to hips. Airline seats seem sized to accommodate a hypothetical 'average' adult; not the maximum of any given dimension for a even a healthy adult.
      - Lanolderen 3y ago
        It's probably more efficient to just get two neighboring seats, lift the arm rest and get a belt extension. Chasing maximum sized people seems inefficient. Imagine designing a plane with each seat having to fit someone like Brian Shaw.
      - prmoustache 3y ago
        If you don't account for leg length, or lack of thereof which affect large people more than seat width, any not morbidly obese adult fit in an Airline seat. You may have a distorted view of what consist an healthy adult. And no people spending a lot of time lifting weight to grow muscles more than the typical crossfit athlete would are not healthy. They lose so much flexibility they can't do many simple thing, let alone scratch their back. The fact is there are many non healthy adults and the question is what do we do about them. Is flying a fundamental right? Should people with over the top obesity have to pay more to use 2 seats? Should large people have to pay extra or business class tickets to get a decent leg length?
badpun 3y ago
> Whats utterly crap is the way large people are hounded into expensive seats on specious "it's your lifestyle" reasons: If aircraft seating dimensions cannot accommodate people then just like the ambulance services, they need to adapt to the weight profile of the community they serve. Airlines, like other companies, serve their owners, not the community. If the community wants to compel the company to do something, they can do it via legislature.
- ggm 3y ago
  Which is precisely what people are trying to make happen at the snails pace of the us justice system. Government being captive to the industry, using weak safety obligations as a get out clause. https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-court-hears-challenge-lack-rules-airplane-seat-size-2022-09-12/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-court-hears-challenge-lack-...

textadventure 3y ago

Sounds like what could be the setting for a Wes Anderson movie.

ant6n 3y ago
With lots of sideways panning camera action along the center aisle of the plane. I'm already humming the music from the Grand Budapest Hotel.

langsoul-com 3y ago

Wonder if they'll do what some airlines in USA do, people of larger weights need to buy 2 seats instead.

bsaul 3y ago
i've also never understood how a xxs clothes was the same price as an xxl one
- defrost 3y ago
  Unit area material costs are small next to the costs of design, marketing, manufacture (where both extra large and extra small items take the same time to complete, have the same number of cuts and the same number of stitches -> same complexity of construction).
  - vsnf 3y ago
    > same number of stitches The only way I can see this being true is if a stitch in this context defined as a singular piece of thread used for attaching fabrics. Is this a common definition? In the common parlance I'm most familiar with, a stitch is one "in-and-out" of the thread. e.g., "I got 17 stitches across my forehead". In that context, I can't see how he large and small articles would take the same number.
    - shiroiuma 3y ago
      You're right, the number of stitches (and amount of thread for stitching) is necessarily going to be less for smaller clothes, but it's not very significant, unless you're comparing childrens' clothes to XXXXL.
    - defrost 3y ago
      Stitches as in "stitching actions" .. whether machine driven or hand driven there are motions required to line up a piece and stitch an arm to a body, to stitch and reinforce a neck loop, etc. These are the things that take up manufacturing time - and time and build complexity is a greater cost than mere thread or material, therefore the cost of a specific jacket (say) is dominated more by the design complexity rather than the area of material and length of thread between a small Vs a large.

SargeDebian 3y ago

> Mainoumi, who reached the top division in the 1990s, weighed about the same as the England rugby captain, Owen Farrell I wonder if Owen Farrell knows he's now a unit of measurement.

elygre 3y ago
The imperial units are getting out of hand.
BigJono 3y ago
That section actually has an error. "There's no minimum weight requirement to become a sumo wrestler", there is, it's 67kg. Though they're getting rid of it next year, probably because they've finally figured out that it's dumb for high school students to force feed themselves 20 big macs a day just to hit some arbitrary weigh in.

keiferski 3y ago

If you are interested in learning more about sumo, I highly highly recommend this article: http://grantland.com/features/sumo-wrestling-tokyo-japan-hakuho-yukio-mishima-novelist-seppuku/ http://grantland.com/features/sumo-wrestling-tokyo-japan-hak... I came across this a few years ago and just loved everything about it: the website design, the writing, the interweaving of Japanese literature and history.

js2 3y ago

> forcing JAL to lay on an additional service for 27 wrestlers I've never seen "lay on" used this way before, but from context I take it to mean they added another plane. According to Mirriam-Webster "lay on" is used by the British to mean "hire" (as in the opposite of "lay off") and I suppose this is a similar use. -- U.S. English speaker.

pm215 3y ago
as a UK English speaker I'm not sure I've ever heard "lay on" used to mean "hire" as M-W claims, and the OED doesn't seem to list that as a sense. The usage in this sentence is the sense the OED defines as: "To provide for the supply of (water, gas, etc.) through pipes from a reservoir; to provide (a telephone line). Hence, to make arrangements for, to provide (refreshments, entertainment, transport, etc.)" and which M-W defines more briefly as "provide, arrange".
- hairywalt 3y ago
  The most common usage I can think of is "they laid on a great spread" which would mean a fantastic buffet was provided. Northern England native.

Ichthypresbyter 3y ago

I remember a story a few years ago where EasyJet had to take some passengers off a flight because it was overweight. In that case, it was because the passengers included a much higher than typical proportion of adult men and, as it was a flight from London to Geneva in winter, there was a lot of heavy winter sports equipment in the checked baggage.

hinata08 3y ago

There was a story like that a few years ago. An ATR42 on a commercial flight had to interrupt it take off above V1=VR, after the plane failed to rotate. Pilot suspected bad weather. BEA concluded to rugby team on board. They then made recommendations about how to sit these guests. It's only in French, unfortunately https://bea.aero/les-enquetes/evenements-notifies/detail/acceleration-arret-apres-la-vitesse-de-rotation-a-la-suite-defforts-superieurs-a-la-normale-sur-la-commande-de-profondeur/ https://bea.aero/les-enquetes/evenements-notifies/detail/acc...

mdrzn 3y ago

"the passenger lists included sumo wrestlers, whom they estimated weighed an average of 120kg – far more than the 70kg average, the Yomiuri said." Sheeeesh, an average of 70kg sounds low. But then again the average reported weight in the USA is 181 pounds, or 82kg, which ALSO seems low.