On Wednesday July 5th, the crew of an easyJet flight had to ask several passengers to disembark before takeoff because the plane was “too heavy”. The incident took place at Lanzarote airport in Spain. In a video shared on social media, it is possible to hear the voice of the crew member explaining the situation.
“The heavy aircraft, combined with a short runway here in Lanzarote and some unfavorable winds here at the airport mean that with the current environmental conditions, the aircraft is too heavy to depart at the moment,” the crew member said. He went on to explain that they could not take off under those conditions for safety reasons.
I have spoken with my senior copilot, and as safety is our number one priority we can’t get airborne at the moment.
easyJet captain
The airline offered up to 500 euros to those passengers who were willing not to fly. “I have spoken with the easyJet operations team and the one way to solve this problem is to look for 20 volunteers to choose not to fly to Liverpool tonight,” the crew member said. According to The Independent, which quotes an airline spokesman, 19 people left the plane and eventually boarded a later flight.
“This is a routine operational decision in these circumstances and weight restrictions are in place for all airlines for safety reasons,” an easyJet spokesperson later said. “In the event that a flight would exceed weight limits, we ask for passengers to volunteer to transfer to a later flight free of charge which is what happened on this occasion and volunteers are provided with compensation in line with regulations.”
According to Condé Nast Traveler, passengers asked to take another flight because the plane is too heavy happens a lot less often than overbooking. The flight in question, which was bound for Liverpool, UK, was scheduled to take off at 21:45 local time, but wound up departing at 23:30.
