Japan's airline adds an extra plane to transport 27 sumo wrestlers after 'over-loading issue'

Japan’s premier airline was obliged to add an extra trip on short notice after determining that two of its aircraft were in danger of going over weight restrictions. Instead of extra luggage, the problem was a passenger list that contained some of the biggest sumo wrestlers in the country. As a result of worries that the two aircraft they were initially scheduled to ride wouldn’t be able to carry enough fuel due to weight limits, Japan Airlines took the “very unusual” step of shifting a number of sumo athletes to a hastily organized special trip last week. According to the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, the sumo rikishi were slated to fly on Boeing 737-800 aircraft from Haneda Airport in Tokyo and Itami Airport in Osaka to Amami Oshima, an island in the extreme south, where they were expected to compete in a sports festival. Staff discovered late on Thursday that the passenger lists contained sumo wrestlers, who they thought weighed an average of 120kg, significantly more than the 70kg average. This raised concerns about fuel capacity, according to the Yomiuri. According to the publication, the Amami airport runway would not have been able to handle a larger aircraft, necessitating JAL to arrange for an additional service for 27 wrestlers, 14 of whom had to fly from Itami to Haneda in order to board the special trip. According to Japanese media, additional flights were reportedly planned to transport the wrestlers home once the competition ended on Sunday. The traveling sumo fraternity has previously made headlines. In 2014, a picture of wrestlers cramped into a tiny plane with passengers went viral. The males, who are all from the Hakkaku stable in Tokyo, were later seen in similarly cozy settings while traveling by bus to a summer training camp. Sumo wrestlers can be of any weight; Mainoumi, who competed in the top division in the 1990s, was around the same size as England rugby captain Owen Farrell. But larger guys dominate the historical sport. The biggest rikishi of all time, rora, a Russian-born fighter who retired in 2018, peaked at 292.6 kg.