I wish I had something better to contribute ... but ...

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

That is the funniest headline I have read today.

Thank you Consumerist :)

How did that even make it on the plane? That seems to be bigger than what is allowed. That should of been checked.

Let's see... should I move my stuffed animal, or should I just get kicked off the plane? Well, obviously I'll just get kicked off the plane!

I can't believe some people are so stupidly selfish.

I love Ryan Air, it's a bus with wings.

We were at the airport in Dublin sitting in terminal waiting for our flight on Ryan Air. A pilot meanders down to the terminal looking half dead. He sits in a chair and instantly falls asleep. My friend and I joke that it must be our pilot.

Twenty minutes later, we see the plane being pulled into the terminal and a Ryan Air employee comes over to the pilot and shakes him a few times. He finally wakes up, stands up looking really groggy and still about to pass out, grabs his stuff and walks onto the plane well before the boarding time. My friend and started to freak out thinking that it really WAS our pilot (it wasn't he just got to board really, really early).

lolz

Incoming playboy spread of her straddling the crocodile.

As Mitch Hedberg used to say, "If you are flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit."

Wait, actually, that doesn't apply at all in this case.

@freshyill: one of my favorite Mitch Hedberg jokes! its funny because it's true.

Ryan Air is indeed like a bus with wings. The front end staff, in my experience, was never to keen on enforcing much of anything. So therefore you get giant stuffed crocodiles that are bigger than carry-ons are allowed to be. Good for them for kicking the lady off, though.

That's really nothing special; it's just Italy.

@freshyill: sure it does! mitch hedberg is always applicable!

in one variation of that joke, he said at the end: "...unless you're a table"

@DashTheHand: DAMN! You beat me to it!!

I'm wondering if there just wasn't enough space in the overhead compartments. I'm assuming here, that Ryanair has overhead compartments... generally, if you push everything in the overheads to be right next to each oher, you free up a decent amount of space. I hope she actually tried to shove the thing into the overhead before she allowed it to block an emergency exit. If she did, and explained it, the flight attendant may have avoided the situation by finding it a different place in the compartment on the plane, and just asked for it to be returned before the flight landed. But we don't know any more info, so I guess it's just conjecture.

You know if there WERE an actual emergency, a stuffed crocodile would be the least of your concerns. I'm sure that they could deal with it then.

In the event of a water landing she was hoping that the croc would serve as a flotation device.

@SavageATL: Anything blocking an exit in an emergency is of everyone's concern.

Of course, the stupid thing would probably be thrown somewhere else by that point - but it's just bad planning.

Imagine the posts here if people died because a stuffed animal was blocking an exit.

Oh for Pete's sake!

I'm all for safety in the skies, but a 3' long (most likely narrow) toy plush crocodile isn't exactly an immovable object. It's not as huge as a person in any way, shape, or form, and is probably quite lightweight.

Seems to me the airline staff could have found a better solution than EITHER / OR.

If the woman bought the plush croc in Italy, it was probably beautifully made and quite expensive, something she wasn't likely to dump off the plane lightly. A family friend brought our son a stuffed-toy platypus from Rome (I kid you not: it's what our then 7-year-old asked for), and I know it set her back quite a few zillion lira. Gorgeous little duckbill, though. :-)

OK, my last attempt to comment apparently was lost in the cyberether.

This time I'll just say: Ahem, Consumerist. Misleading headline much?

A skinny 3-foot-long stuffed animal (everybody measure out 3 feet or one meter with their arms right now) cannot be described as "huge." Talk about whipping everybody up into a lather over nothing.

Shame on the airline for being ridiculous about this.

Gag me. There are both my comments. I'll shut up now.

Crikey' mate!

@ElizabethD: I don't know...I mean, 'huge' might be misleading, but it could be a really fat crocodile. Until we have a picture of it, I could believe that it was 3 feet long and wide.

Perhaps it was a vibrating stuffed crocodile and a really, really lonely woman.

This is nothing -- this one time, I got my oversized Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cutout stuck in the entryway to an Alitalia jet. It was really awkward!

Yers but whenn everybody starts to panic when the plane is on fire that small 3 foot toy can cause major problems.

A lot of people are defending the croc, but really, there is a safety rule and everyone has to comply. If she bought a really fancy stuffed animal, maybe she should have packed it safely in her checked luggage. I always abide by the rules of how big my bags can be when I fly, and it's kind of upsetting to see that some people have absolutely no regard for those rules. If everyone on a full flight brought 3' crocodiles, the whole plane would be overstuffed! I make sure not to overpack when I go on vacation so that I have room in my luggage for any souvenirs that I might bring back.

@DashTheHand: Damn! beat me to it

I'm so tired of people who bring extra bags and stuff on the plane because they are too important to wait for baggage. It takes forever to board while people stuff their bags in several overhead bins. It's worst at Christmas when people have wrapped gifts, often fragile, and planes are full.

The FAA large-stuffed-animal-carry-on luggage clearly only applies to teddy bears carried by action heroes like John McClane and Jack Ryan. She should have known better.

I just have to wonder what was going on in that lady's head. Seriously...just stash the damn teddy and get over it. How narcissistic did she need to be? She's lucky her fellow passengers didn't give her a beating for causing a delay on an already-long international flight.

@bonzombiekitty:

This put me in hysterics. I had to literally leave my desk and dash into the hall because I was laughing so hard. I can just see you two imagining the half-dead pilot propped up behind the wheel ...

Thanks for giving the rest of us a bad name, lady.

@ElizabethD:

Then how about moving your seat instead of blocking the exit? Hell had it been a 300lb 8 year old blocking the exit I can imagine you singing a different toon.

DO NOT BLOCK EXITS OF THE PLANE WITH JUNK. PEOPLES ABILITY TO GET OUT THEM WHEN NEEDED ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOU 20 DOLLAR DOLL.

They should of made her buy a ticket for the crocodile

Did the stuffed crocodile get kicked off the flight too?

What they don't seem to adress is articles NEAR the exits which could shift durring any unplanned maneuvers. The crocodile would probably end up several seats foreward durring a hard bump or turbulance.