An airline passenger recently went to extreme lengths to avoid paying a fee for extra baggage - she wore many of the clothes she had packed to bring down her suitcase's weight, New York Post reported. However, the viral travel hack adopted by many didn't work for her, as she ended up getting a fine from the airline.
Notably, 19-year-old Adriana Ocampo was traveling with airline Jetstar from Melbourne to her home in Adelaide, Australia, after a girls' trip with her friend. After realising her carry-on luggage exceeded the maximum weight limit of seven kilos, she put on all of her extra clothes to avoid the excess baggage fee. Her friend also followed suit, as her case was also over the limit.
In a video that went viral, the teenager piled on almost six kilos of clothing including t-shirts, jackets, jumpers, and trousers. Speaking to South West News Service, Ms. Ocampo said that she ''looked like a bear'' while trying to pull off the stunt.
''We thought the only way we can take the weight off our bags is if we put it on ourselves, so we started putting on our jackets and coats. As well as layers of jackets and jumpers, I had baggy trousers on and I was stuffing t-shirts and my iPad in them. I had about six layers on and stuff in my pockets,'' she said.
''Everyone in line was staring at us and laughing at us, it was kind of embarrassing. People were annoyed that we were holding the plane up,'' she added.
However, their luggage was still more than 1kg over the limit, even with her best efforts. The airline told them they had to pay the $65 fine. What's more, she then had to wear all the clothes on the plane as well.
In a statement to The Independent, a Jetstar spokesperson said, ''While we certainly see the funny side, we have limits to carry-on to make it fair for everyone. Keeping track of how much baggage passengers bring onboard means everyone has room for their belongings and we're meeting our safety requirements.''
In a similar incident in 2019, a Filipino airline passenger wore about 2.5 kilograms of clothes to bring down her bag's weight to only 6.5 kg. She also posted a hilarious photo on Facebook which showed her wearing around five pairs of pants and multiple T-shirts and jackets.
