Busted: Man Poses As Flight Attendant, Gets 120 Free Flights

A 35-year-old man is potentially looking at some serious punishment, after being convicted of a sneaky airline scheme (thanks to PYOK for flagging this)…

Person uses airline employee badge numbers to get free flights

Tiron Alexander has been convicted by a federal jury of wire fraud and entering into the secure area of an airport by false pretenses, which carries a maximum sentence of up to 30 years in prison. That includes up to 20 years for wire fraud, and up to 10 years for entering a secure area by false pretenses.

This follows a lengthy investigation by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) into a scheme that this guy was carrying out.

This involves how airline employees get travel benefits, including for travel on other airlines. While most airline employees get significant discounts, pilots and flight attendants can often fly for free, including on other airlines, given that they sometimes need to commute to work.

So Alexander took advantage of this, by posing as a flight attendant, in order to fly for free. Between 2018 and 2024, Alexander posed as a flight attendant for several airlines, in order to take 34 Spirit Airlines flights at no cost.

How was he able to do that? Eligible airline employees can list themselves for free flights through an internal booking site. This requires filling out an application where you select whether you’re a pilot or flight attendant, and provide your employer, date of hire, and badge number.

Over the course of 34 flights, he claimed to work for seven different airlines, and provided approximately 30 different badge numbers and dates of hire. While 34 flights were specific to that airline (which is what was being tracked most closely), in total, he booked more than 120 free flights through this process, across airlines.

The irony is that this guy was an airline employee

Here’s what makes this story kind of wild. As it turns out, Alexander actually was an airline employee all the way from 2015 until 2024 (when he was arrested). It’s not clear what airline he worked for or exactly what role he had, though he wasn’t a pilot or flight attendant.

Wait, why would he pose as a flight attendant with fake credentials, when most airline employees receive travel benefits anyway? Well, most airline employees receive discounted travel on other airlines, but not free flights. Clearly he didn’t want to pay anything for his flights, which is why he engaged in this scheme. It’s also possible that posing as a pilot or flight attendant gave him access to travel on more airlines.

I imagine someone without a connection to the airline industry wouldn’t have been able to “hack” the system in this way, since they wouldn’t know this is possible. So this guy likely had just enough information to get himself in trouble…

Bottom line

A man has been found guilty of using fake credentials to pose as a flight attendant, taking a total of 120 free flights over the course of several years. He now faces up to 30 years in prison, including for wire fraud and entering into the secure area of an airport by false pretenses.

The irony in this story is that he actually was an airline employee, he just wasn’t eligible for completely free flights. So clearly he didn’t want to pay anything for flights, which is what caused him to engage in this scheme.

What do you make of this strange story?