Airport staff stop passenger boarding for wearing Transformers T-shirt

By Urmee Khan Daily TelegraphLast Updated: 2:59PM BST 02/06/2008

Airport guards have stopped a man boarding a plane for wearing a Transformers T-shirt showing a cartoon gun.

Brad Jayakody, 30, was told he had to change his T-shirt if he wanted to catch his flight from Heathrow's Terminal 5.

His top showed the Transformers film character Optimus Prime holding a gun.

Mr Jayakody, an IT consultant, was scheduled to board the British Airways plane to Dusseldorf, Germany, with four work colleagues.

<A name=continue>"My mate set off the alarms and was searched. But then the guy told me to stop and said 'you cannot get on the plane because there is a gun on your T-shirt'" he said.

Mr Jayakody, from Bayswater, West London was then threatened with arrest after he asked to see the security chief.

He said: "It's a cartoon robot with a gun as an arm. What was I going to do, use the shirt to pretend I have a gun?

"I was flabbergasted. I thought the supervisor would come over and see sense, but he didn't. After I changed he said if I changed back I would be arrested."

A spokesman for Heathrow operator BAA said: "If a T-shirt had a rude word or a bomb on it for example, a passenger may be asked to remove it.

"We are investigating what happened to see if it came under this category."

Last year Gatwick guards made a woman hand over a beef sandwich before boarding and last week a PhD student was stopped for wearing a gun-shaped charm necklace at an airport in Canada.

In 2006 a human rights activist was prevented from boarding a plane in New York, for while wearing a T-shirt that read, "We will not be silent," in English and Arabic.

• 
  

• 
  

• 
  

[*]<LI class=site_stumbleupon>

Brad Jayakodi wearing his Transformers T-shirt

Airport staff stop passenger boarding for wearing Transformers T-shirt

By Urmee Khan Daily TelegraphLast Updated: 2:59PM BST 02/06/2008

Airport guards have stopped a man boarding a plane for wearing a Transformers T-shirt showing a cartoon gun.

Brad Jayakody, 30, was told he had to change his T-shirt if he wanted to catch his flight from Heathrow's Terminal 5.

His top showed the Transformers film character Optimus Prime holding a gun.

Mr Jayakody, an IT consultant, was scheduled to board the British Airways plane to Dusseldorf, Germany, with four work colleagues.

<A name=continue>"My mate set off the alarms and was searched. But then the guy told me to stop and said 'you cannot get on the plane because there is a gun on your T-shirt'" he said.

Mr Jayakody, from Bayswater, West London was then threatened with arrest after he asked to see the security chief.

He said: "It's a cartoon robot with a gun as an arm. What was I going to do, use the shirt to pretend I have a gun?

"I was flabbergasted. I thought the supervisor would come over and see sense, but he didn't. After I changed he said if I changed back I would be arrested."

A spokesman for Heathrow operator BAA said: "If a T-shirt had a rude word or a bomb on it for example, a passenger may be asked to remove it.

"We are investigating what happened to see if it came under this category."

Last year Gatwick guards made a woman hand over a beef sandwich before boarding and last week a PhD student was stopped for wearing a gun-shaped charm necklace at an airport in Canada.

In 2006 a human rights activist was prevented from boarding a plane in New York, for while wearing a T-shirt that read, "We will not be silent" in English and Arabic.

• 
  

• 
  

• • 
    

[*]<LI class=site_stumbleupon>

Brad Jayakodi wearing his Transformers T-shirt

Now that is ridiculous. Really glad I left the UK and sometimes, so ashamed to say I'm a Brit.

Madness!

Not related to Thailand.

--

Maestro