Japanese airline puts on extra flight after group of sumo wrestlers made plane too heavy

Oct 17, 2023 | News On Japan

Oct 17, 2023 (AFP) - Japan’s flag carrier airline was forced to lay on an extra flight because flights carrying sumo wrestlers may have been too heavy to fly safely.

Japan Airlines took the “unusual” step of transferring a number of the sumo wrestlers to a specially-organised flight in order to distribute the weight, local media have reported.

The sumo fighters were scheduled to take flights from Haneda airport in Tokyo and Itami airport in Osaka to Amami Oshima, an island in the far south, where they were due to compete, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper said.

But officials learned late on Thursday that the average sumo wrestler set to be on the flights weighed an average of 120 kilos - compared to an average person weight of 70 kilos.

The runway of the airport where the sumo wrestlers landed would have struggled to accommodate a larger aircraft, meaning an additional flight was needed for 27 wrestlers, 14 of whom had to travel especially to get the new flight. ...continue reading

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