‘Too fat to fly’ Frenchman lands in Britain

London:  A young Frenchman who was stranded in the United States because he was deemed too heavy to fly finally took a plane to Britain on Monday, one step closer to going home.

Kevin Chenais, who has a hormone imbalance and weighs 230 kilograms (500 pounds), arrived at London’s Heathrow airport with his parents early Monday after Virgin agreed to fly him back from New York.

Chenais, 22, had been in the United States since May 2012 for treatment. He tried to fly home with British Airways last month but the airline said he was too heavy.

The family subsequently tried to sail across the Atlantic, but the Queen Mary cruise ship also refused to have him onboard.

Arriving at Heathrow, Chenais described the flight as “terrible, terrible, terrible”.

“The flight was really hard,” he told AFP in French as he sat on a mobility scooter at the airport, wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with a large US flag.

“I didn’t stop crying for the whole flight.”

But he praised Virgin for flying him out from New York’s JFK airport and paying for the economy-class flight. “That was very kind of them,” he said….

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