Man grounded over bid to fly wearing all clothes he packed
Williams calls British Airways ‘despicable’
There are many approaches to avoid paying a fee for excess luggage when travelling by air these days.
You could pack light, cramming all your belongings in an approved carryon bag.
You could book with an airline that doesn’t charge for baggage.
Or, in the case of one man flying out of Iceland last week, you could try boarding the plane donning, say, 10 shirts and eight pairs of pants.
That was the approach of a traveller identified by the Iceland Monitor as Ryan Carney Williams, who claims he was booted from a British Airways flight from Keflavik International Airport to England yesterday for wearing too many clothes.
In a pair of videos posted to Twitter, where Williams goes by the alias ‘Ryan Hawaii’, he filmed himself at the Keflavik airport, practically swallowed in layers of clothing. At least two sweaters — or are they pants? — were draped on his shoulders and tied around his neck.
On Twitter, Williams said he couldn’t afford the excess baggage fee, about $125 (Dh459), “as a result of being left homeless in Iceland for over a week.” He also claimed British Airways had told him he could board the flight if he wore all of his clothes at once but then rejected him anyway.
“They’re really having me dress like this to go on, and they won’t even let me go on,” he said in the January 10 video, with a disapproving look at the camera.
In the video, Williams called the airline “despicable” and openly wondered if he was the victim of racial profiling. “Is it ‘cause of what I look like?” he asked.
Williams eventually flew home on a third airline. It was unclear if all his clothes made it.