Passenger Layers On Clothes To Avoid Paying Excess Baggage Fee At Airport

We all know what it's like: you find an absolute bargain of a ticket, you think you're going to Milan for a fiver - and then, many clicks later after seemingly endless add-ons, your bargain has evaporated.

Excess baggage fees in particular can eat away at your bank balance, but one passenger from the Philippines was not about to let this happen.

Gel Rodriguez/Facebook

Gel Rodriguez, from Davao City, rocked up at the airport with 9kg of luggage - 2kg more than the maximum weight allowance. Rather than frantically purchasing a bonus bag and paying an excess baggage fee, Gel decided to remove her heaviest items from her luggage and wear them; this meant wearing numerous jackets, shirts and trousers alllllll at once.

Having successfully shed 2.5kg of weight from her luggage, Gel managed to avoid paying the excess fee.

She subsequently posted a celebratory picture of herself in her plentiful garms on Facebook along with the hashtag #ExcessBaggageChallengeAccepted.

The post subsequently went viral, receiving 33,000 likes and 20,000 shares.

But despite the financial and viral success of her frugal ploy, Gel said she probably wouldn't do it again.

Speaking to Vice, she said: "I didn't want to pay the fee for the excess baggage because it was only two kilograms. If I had known it would go viral, I would have posed better.

"It was really hot. I don't recommend other people do it."

While it undeniably takes a certain amount of gumption to go ahead with wearing several kilograms worth of clobber on a flight, it isn't exactly an innovative idea these days.

Just last year, a guy actually got arrested after trying to wear 10 jackets and eight pairs of trousers on a flight from Iceland to the UK.

Twitter/Ryan Hawaii

When Ryan Hawaii got to the airport to catch his flight, he didn't realise his sister-in-law had bought him a ticket without baggage. Having spent nine days in Iceland, the fashion designer and singer said he was broke and couldn't afford the £90 ($115) fee to check his baggage onto the British Airways plane.

Unsurprisingly, ground staff weren't thrilled with him wearing all of his clothes at once and security were called before the police were brought in.

Ryan told LADbible he was 'manhandled' when they arrested him, claiming that an officer 'twisted his wrists and dug their knee into his back and head'.

However, a spokesperson for BA said: "We give our customers a wide range of fares to choose from to meet their needs. We do understand that our customers' plans can change so they can choose to pay a fee at the airport if they need an extra bag.

"We explained our policy to our customer, and offered him an alternative flight to London. We do not tolerate threatening or abusive behaviour from any customer, and will always take the appropriate action."

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Topics: Daily Ladness, Funny, Community, Weird

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey