36 stone man finally gets home
The obese Frenchman deemed ‘too big to fly’ has finally arrived back in his home country, weeks after being refused permission to board a British Airways flight.
Kevin Chenais, who is 22 and weighs 230kg (36 stone), made headlines all over the world when he was initially refused permission to board a British Airways flight from Chicago last month.
According to the BBC, the family then tried to book a transatlantic crossing on Cunard’s ship Queen Mary, but the cruiseline also refused to carry him.
Virgin Atlantic stepped in this week to fly him back to London, where he had hoped to take a Eurostar train to France.
However, Eurostar also said he could not travel because of safety rules.
Instead, he travelled across the English Channel with P&O Ferries. Eurostar said it paid for the family to be driven to Dover in a special ambulance.
Chenais had originally travelled to the US in May 2012, with BA, where he had 18 months of treatment for hormone inbalance in Minnesota.
He arrived in Calais yesterday evening and was due to be driven to his home in south-eastern France by ambulance.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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