Safety on board

While in Biarritz, we bumped into a group of seven “lads” from Bective rugby club who were over on a short break. They turned up on the same Ryanair flight home as ourselves, where they paid the small fee for “priority boarding”.

When they boarded the plane, they filled one full row of the two which constitute the emergency exits over the wings - the surplus member of the party had to sit in the other emergency exit row. Their objective was to avail of the extra leg-room provided in those particular rows.

Now here’s the thing: all of these guys were in their 60’s, overweight and red-faced. They looked like classic candidates for a heart attack. In the event of a crash, some of them looked like they’d have difficulty getting their bulk out through the emergency exit, if they hadn’t already died of a heart attack from fright.

In other words, these six guys would probably have completely blocked access to 25% of the emergency exits, while their spare mate was probably doing the same in the row in front.

Surely there should be rules about just who can sit in these rows? I know I shouldn’t qualify.