A British couple who was told they were too heavy for their plane to take off have lost a collective 172 pounds since the embarrassing incident, UPI reported.

Alan Coupe, 54, and his wife Jan, 49, were seated in the back of the plane on an April, 2005, flight. A flight attendant asked one of them to move to even out the weight on the plane so that the aircraft could take off.

"The stewardess asked one of us to get up and move to the front, so Alan volunteered to move which I was thankful about as I was so embarrassed I just couldn't look up," Jan Coupe told The Daily Telegraph. "We couldn't believe that we were too heavy for the plane to take off."

"It was a decent-sized plane full of holidaymakers so it was devastating to be told that even a big plane like that couldn't cope with all our weight being at the back," she said.

The plane fiasco sparked the couple’s motivation to lose weight. They said they joined a diet club soon after and Alan has since lost 83 pounds while Jan has lost 89 pounds, UPI reported.

"I don't feel embarrassed about getting on a plane anymore — we all feel so great we could fly around the world now without a hitch," Jan Coupe said.

I think i would keel over and die if anyone said this to me!

Oh my, i would be so embarrassed. Awesome that they have lost so much weight.

Wow I would have died if they asked me to move because I was to fat. Glad they lost hte weight.

a little crass on the airlines part though..

I was a Flight Attendant for many years before becoming Mom2Three, and it's not unusual for FA's to ask people to move to even out the weight load at all. When I was on the smaller planes, the Pilots would give us the load distribution with the paperwork before every flight. We had a specific # of passengers who were allowed in the back row and front row, it varied with the # of people on the flight and # of bags in the back. So, yes they were asked to move, but I'm not 100% sure it's only because they were overweight. KWIM?

Still, they took the incentive to get healthy from it, so it certainly didn't end badly.

As mortifying as it would be to be asked to move, I'd rather that than have something malfunction on the plane during take-off, flight or landing because the weight distribution were screwy.

Good for them for being pro-active and losing all that weight. It'd be great if the airline gave them a pair of free tickets somewhere, assuming they didn't 'whine' about the original incident.