Japan Airlines (JAL) was forced to add an extra domestic flight last week to accommodate a large group of sumo wrestlers flying from Tokyo to attend a local competition in southern Japan.
One group, consisting of 13 members, was booked at Haneda Airport in Tokyo, while the other 14 wrestlers were flying from Itami Airport in Osaka Prefecture.
The airline concluded that with the wrestlers’ average weight, the two Boeing 737-800s, which can carry a maximum of 165 passengers, would not be able to carry the required fuel capacity for the flights.
Another issue the airlines discovered was that the airport on Amami was too small to accommodate a large airplane.
Workaround: As a workaround, JAL reportedly decided to add a special domestic flight on Oct. 12 on short notice to fly all 27 wrestlers to the island for the competition, including the 14 sumo wrestlers who were made to fly from Itami to Haneda Airport in Tokyo that day.
A spokesperson for JAL reportedly told the Minami-Nippon Shimbun that it was “extremely unusual” for them to “operate special flights due to the weight restrictions on this aircraft.”
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