An airline passenger was refused boarding for wearing too much clothing

An airline passenger was dismayed to be refused travel on two planes after he turned up at check-in wearing 10 shirts and eight pairs of pants. Ryan Carney Williams was travelling from Iceland to London, and he made the decision to wear all of his clothes to avoid paying a checked baggage fee of £90.

As he attempted to check-in for his British Airways flight at Keflavik Airport, the passenger, who designs and sells clothing under the name, Ryan Hawaii, was refused a boarding pass by the airline. He took to Twitter to complain to the airline that he wasn’t allowed to board his flight, and later explained to his social media following that security and airport police had become involved in the dispute. A spokeswoman for British Airways subsequently explained why the decision had been taken to deny Ryan boarding.

“The decision to deny boarding was absolutely not based on race,” she said. “We do not tolerate threatening or abusive behaviour from any customer, and will always take the appropriate action.” Ryan booked a seat on a second flight with EasyJet the following day, but alas he was also refused boarding by that airline. It subsequently explained that the captain made the decision based on reports around what had occurred the previous day.

Taking to his Twitter account, Ryan said that he wasn’t trying to evade the fee for checking in a bag, but he couldn’t afford to pay it as a result of being left homeless in Iceland for over a week. Having been stuck in the airport for two days, the story had a happy ending as he was eventually able to board a Norwegian airline flight back to London. He has since reported that both EasyJet and British Airways have refunded the cost of his plane tickets.

Last year, a South African passenger flying from Malawi raised fellow passengers’ eyebrows and was almost refused boarding as he was only wearing his swim uniform of Speedos and flip-flops. Happily the airline relented when they heard that his stunt was designed to raise money for charity.