A federal jury convicted Florida Man Tiron Alexander of impersonating pilots and flight attendants to fly free – more than 120 flights over six years. He was found guilty of wire fraud, identity theft, and fraudulent against various airlines.
Maybe he saw Catch Me If You Can?
Tiron Alexander claimed to be employed as a flight attendant or pilot with seven different airlines to nonrev on several airlines, using 30 fraudulent sets of credentials and stolen badge numbers from actual airline employees. He booked flights through the Spirit Airlines employee travel portal.
Aircrew could book these tickets through an internal travel booking site which included access to other airlines with which there were reciprocal agreements.
To book a flight through this internal site, aircrew have to provide the name of their employer, along with their date of hire, and badge number information.
According to the Department of Justice,
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, from 2018 to 2024, Alexander booked free flights on an airline carrier’s website that were only available to pilots and flight attendants. In total, Alexander flew on 34 flights with the airline carrier without paying for any of them by posing as a flight attendant who worked for other airlines.
Over the 34 flights, Alexander claimed through the airline carrier’s website application process—a process that required an applicant to select whether they were a pilot or flight attendant and provide their employer, date of hire, and badge number information—that he worked for seven different airlines and had approximately 30 different badge numbers and dates of hire.
The evidence at trial also showed that Alexander posed as a flight attendant on three other airline carriers. Ultimately, Alexander booked more than 120 free flights by falsely claiming to be a flight attendant.
Alexander now faces severe penalties, potentially including up to 20 years in federal prison, along with substantial fines.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
@Linda: seems a stupid country allowed the game to be played. Now punish the players. A system that asks for information on a website but doesn’t seem to have the database you confirm entries. Ain’t America Great? Country electing a crook deserves these schemes.
Ray: There is a national airline employee database in place for jumpseating. Moron.
Catch Me If You Can is one of my favorites. Wild that it was based on a true story, the life of Frank Abagnale Jr. As with other DiCaprio films, like The Wolf of Wall Street, based on Jordan Belfort, things usually don’t end up ‘well’ in the end for these criminals. Yet, their rise and fall sure is wild and makes for great movies. Not so great for the people harmed by their misdeeds. Makes you wonder what future ‘films’ will be made off today’s ’characters.’ Hmm.
But did he get any upgrades?
@McGee — Excellent callback. This guy VFTWs.
Dude going to prison and will never work in aviation again because he wanted to get free flights on an airline with $29 fares. You can’t make up this level of stupidity.
@George N Romey — As with Frank Abagnale Jr. not intending to be an actual doctor or pilot, Alexander (the guy in this story) did not appear to genuinely be interested in working in aviation, either as a pilot or a flight attendant; this apparently was all just a scam to get free flights. If convicted, it’s clearly not worth the potential ’30 years in federal prison.’
Sadly this was a loophole in I warned a handful of airlines about; a few of them took away the generic login that this person used so that you had to use your own profile to make a listing.
But unfortunately, not all airlines did away with the generic login and this is how this guy got to travel.
The system allowed you to login and then select pilot commuting or FA commuting, if an agreement was loaded, and list for a flight. However, the onus is on the operating airline to make sure the passenger is truely a pilot or flight attendant “jumpseater”. As a pilot, most airlines will typically check your information against CASS, but not all.
He should be required to pay for the abused flights along with reasonable fines and then perform community service. I think jail time is a bit excessive and costly to the taxpayer.
Should be a smooth transition from the big front seat to the big house. Of course they’ll be less drama and violence in his new venue.
@Ken — Woah, woah, woah… ‘restorative justice’ is far too logical and reasonable. Like, you’re going to ‘sadden’ those who directly profit from capital punishment. Shouldn’t he get the electric chair? /s
Hopefully, the the court won’t accept his “cashier’s check” for the fine that has a “Pam Am” decal lifted from a plastic 707 model.
I’d be curious of any correlation to who is celebrating vs vilifying this guys action vs who was rooting for Frank and who was for Carl in the movie.
@1990 — Two of my favorite movies too, they never get old. I saw a SBF movie is already in the works
@CaptainFreedom — Great scene.
@McGee — Ha! Good VFTW reference indeed.
Here’s one for the group: What do “Catch Me if You Can” and Capital One Venture X have in common? Jennifer Garner
@L737 — “Go fish..”
Loved the movie and rooted for Frank every time. Anyone else spot the obviously aviation error when the were “circling” LGA near the very end?
This clown might see 6 months, if any jail time.
and the vaunted always-protecting-us TSA didn’t spot him immediately? That seems to be the bigger Q.
The best part is that he could fly right through TSA and other security “theater” in the process.
I wonder if he tried to use the “Known Crew Member” entry? As a flight attendant, he’s not authorized to use the CAS system so cockpit access would be prohibited.