Easy Jet flight from Lanzarote ask 20 passengers to leave the plane as it's too heavy to take off

An Easy Jet pilot asked 20 passengers, travelling from Lanzarote to Liverpool, to depart the plane as it was too heavy to take off in the current conditions.

The flight that was due to take off from Lanzarote's Cesar Manrique Airport at 9.45pm, but due to issues didn't leave until gone 11.30pm. A video of the pilots announcement was filmed by a passenger and posted to the social media network, Tok Tok. This has since gone viral.

In the video, the pilot can be heard saying. ¨Thank you for getting here today. Because there are so many of you it's a pretty heavy aircraft. That heavy aircraft, combined with the pretty short runway and unfavourable conditions here in Lanzarote, means the aircraft is too heavy to take off. I've been sat here with my senior first officer and we're very experience with this and have done this before."

"With safety as our number one priority, there is no way, with the current wind conditions that we could get this aircraft airborne. There are a number of factors - it's very hot, the wind isn't fantastic and the direction isn't great."

At this point 20 passengers were asked to volunteer to disembark, with compensation provided by Easy Jet of up to €500 per passenger.

A spokesperson for EasyJet confirmed that 19 people volunteered to leave the flight, and the plane made its way to Liverpool nearly 2 hours later than it's scheduled departure time.

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