A 35-year-old man was convicted last week of scoring free airline flights by posing as a flight attendant dozens of times since 2018.
Tiron Alexander was convicted by a federal jury of wire fraud and entering a secure area of an airport under false pretenses. Authorities said he took advantage of airline policies that allow pilots and flight attendants on competing carriers to fly free as “non-revenue” passengers.
According to the U.S. attorney’s office, he fraudulently booked more than 120 flights on four airlines to Atlanta, Dallas, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and other destinations.
Of those flights, 34 were on Spirit Airlines. In a news release, prosecutors said he claimed to work for seven airlines, providing about 30 badge numbers and dates of hire to book flights through a website available only to flight crew. He still had to provide his name and birth date to get a boarding pass.
“That information is how he was ultimately caught, with his fraudulently secured flights piling up in Spirit’s log books until it was large enough for the airline to take notice,” court documents say.
The Transportation Security Administration said it started investigating Alexander in 2023.
“While Alexander was able to board flights by fraudulently obtaining a boarding pass, he underwent all applicable TSA security procedures, including ID verification and physical screening, and did not pose a threat to other airline passengers,” the agency said in a statement. “TSA remains dedicated to the security of the flying public and will continue to support the prosecution of those who break air travel laws.”
A federal grand jury handed down the indictment in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in October, but Alexander wasn’t taken into custody until February. He was arrested trying to fly from San Francisco to Australia, according to court records.
Alexander most recently worked for American Airlines in customer service, court documents say, but had been suspended without pay for about a year when he was arrested.
His employment history, as detailed in filings, shows a long interest in aviation. He worked as a flight attendant for two regional airlines between 2013 and 2015.
He had since tried to return to the skies, applying to the Alaska Airlines pilot academy in 2022 and for flight attendant jobs at Alaska and Delta in 2024.
Prosecutors declined to comment; Alexander’s public defenders did not respond to emails requesting comment Wednesday.
Alexander was convicted of four counts of wire fraud, each of which could carry a maximum of 20 years in prison, and one count of entering a secure airport area under false pretenses, which has a maximum sentence of 10 years. Each count can also come with a top fine of $250,000.
He is scheduled to be sentenced in August, according to the Justice Department’s news release.
It is not the first time a flier has pulled one over on an airline. Con man Frank Abagnale Jr. said he posed as a pilot as a teenager for free flights, a feat that got him portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie “Catch Me if You Can.” A man in India tried to gain his own pilot perks with a fake ID before being arrested in 2019. And a Houston man who had previously worked for an airline pleaded guilty to making false identity cards to get free flights on Spirit in 2021.
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