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

theguardian.com

11–20 of 44 posts

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

#12
If you are interested in learning more about sumo, I highly highly recommend this article: 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.

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

#13
post #10
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

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

#14
post #11

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

i've also never understood how a xxs clothes was the same price as an xxl one

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).

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

#15

> 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.

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.

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

#16
> 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.

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

#17
post #13
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

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

#18
post #13
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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?

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

#19
post #14
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i've also never understood how a xxs clothes was the same price as an xxl one

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).

> 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.

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

#20
post #2

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 seat…

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.

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.
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