Carla Brunella’s flight cost £43.
The bag fee would have cost £70. So she wore the bag instead.
The 27-year-old was flying Ryanair from Verona to Manchester in May when a check-in worker told her the personal item she’d packed was too big to travel free.
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She could pay the £70 charge, or she could shrink it. Carla found a third option.
She put on roughly six complete outfits and walked to the gate dressed in most of her suitcase.
The plan came together at the sizer
“When I realised the bag was too big for the sizer, I started laughing,” she told Creatorzine.
“I had a feeling this would happen as I shopped a bit too much in Verona.”
The shopping was the problem. The solution arrived fully formed.
“When I went to check in and get my boarding pass, the lady let me know that my personal bag was too big and I needed to pay or get it to be smaller and fit in the required measurements.
The idea came naturally. I just knew I didn’t want to pay an extra penny. My only option was to wear everything so I didn’t have to pay.”
A mental health worker from Spain, Carla committed to the layering with full knowledge of what she was signing up for.
Six outfits, one warm walk to the gate
“It was hot and heavy,” she said.
“I felt funny and people were staring at me.”
The relief came the second she cleared the last checkpoint.
“I took the clothes off as soon as I passed gate control outside of the plane.
I was super happy I didn’t have to pay the fine. I don’t think I’d ever pay the extra fee to check in a bag.”
She filmed the whole thing. The clip of her shuffling through the airport in her entire wardrobe passed 455,000 views.
Not everyone was sold on the maths.
“So you saved like €10? What a flex,” one commenter wrote.
“Just pay for it,” said another.
Someone else thought of the real victim. “I feel for person next to you at the end of the flight.”
One viewer landed somewhere in the middle: “I know you were burning up, though still smart.”
And one cut straight to the point: “This bag is nowhere near the personal bag size requirements.”
Why it matters
Budget airline baggage rules have become their own content genre.
Creators have worked out that the gap between a cheap fare and a punishing add-on fee is reliable footage, and a woman wearing six outfits to beat the system gets clicks in a way that simply paying never will.
The fee is the villain. The workaround is the story.
It fits a wider pattern of travellers turning airline pricing into performance, from wearable-luggage hacks to the steady stream of viral clips testing exactly how far the rules bend.
Ryanair’s strict sizer, in particular, has become a recurring antagonist online.
Whether Carla’s method spreads or stays a one-off depends on how many people decide a sweaty walk to the gate beats £70.
Judging by the views, plenty are at least tempted.
