{"id":182392,"date":"2025-06-14T00:11:08","date_gmt":"2025-06-14T00:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/182392\/"},"modified":"2025-06-14T00:11:08","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T00:11:08","slug":"man-pretended-to-be-flight-attendant-to-score-free-flights-for-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/182392\/","title":{"rendered":"Man pretended to be flight attendant to score free flights for years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;right:0;bottom:0;width:100%;height:100%;z-index:2\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/84072436007-getty-images-1026611552-1.jpg\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vidplayicon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/appservices\/universal-web\/universal\/icons\/icon-play-alt-white.svg\" alt=\"play\" style=\"height:40px;margin:auto 18px auto 27px;width:40px\"\/><\/p>\n<p>What we know now about President Trump&#8217;s new travel ban taking effect<\/p>\n<p>How could President Trump&#8217;s travel ban or restriction of nearly 20 countries impact you? Here is what we know now.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A 35-year-old Florida man was convicted of posing as a flight attendant to book over 120 free flights.<\/li>\n<li>He falsely claimed to work for major airlines including American, Spirit, United, Delta, and Southwest.<\/li>\n<li>He used fraudulent employee credentials to access crew-only websites for booking non-revenue travel.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A 35-year-old man who falsely claimed to be a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/travel\/columnist\/2025\/04\/30\/flight-crew-duty-clock-cruising-altitude\/80061135007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">flight attendant<\/a> for six years to book over 120 free flights was convicted by a federal jury on Tuesday, according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-sdfl\/pr\/federal-jury-finds-south-florida-man-guilty-posing-flight-attendant-obtain-free\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">press release<\/a> by the United States Attorney\u2019s Office for the Southern District of Florida.<\/p>\n<p>Between 2018 and 2024, Tiron Alexander posed as a flight attendant for multiple major U.S. airlines, accessing the websites reserved for flight crew to book free flights using their employee benefits. Alexander is being charged with wire fraud and &#8220;entering into a secure area of an airport by false pretenses,&#8221; the release said.<\/p>\n<p>The carriers named in court documents include American Airlines, Spirit Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines.<\/p>\n<p>Alexander reportedly flew 34 flights on one airline by pretending to be a flight attendant or staff member by using 30 different badge numbers and dates of hire to book his no-cost flights. According to the attorney&#8217;s office, he also claimed to be a flight attendant with three other airlines to book more flights.<\/p>\n<p class=\"related-link\"><strong style=\"margin-right:3px\">Here&#8217;s how: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/travel\/news\/2025\/06\/10\/cbp-new-airport-screening-technologies\/84133198007\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">You might be able to get through customs quicker at these airports<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Free flights for airline crew members are a longstanding industry perk, also known as non-revenue travel. Airline employees and often their friends and family can fly standby at no cost based on seniority and availability.<\/p>\n<p>According to his indictment from October 2024, Alexander worked for an airline &#8220;from on or about November 30, 2015, and continuing through the present,&#8221; although his position was not identified. He was never a flight attendant or pilot.<\/p>\n<p>According to court records, Alexander was arrested in March. His sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 25 in the District Court for the Southern District of Florida.<\/p>\n<p>The Transportation Security Administration investigated his case, which is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael C. Shepherd, Zachary A. Keller, and Andres E. Chinchilla.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What we know now about President Trump&#8217;s new travel ban taking effect How could President Trump&#8217;s travel ban&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[5784,323,37135,13133,74919,74920,18991,188,7902,64133,6474,8519,577,349,3823,806,7898,7900,69364,3462,35443,5777,5786,6584,12,5179,6591,69363,69366,1426,8527,183,5181,2739,15357,49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-182392","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-affiliate","9":"tag-ai","10":"tag-air","11":"tag-air-travel","12":"tag-airline","13":"tag-airline-industry","14":"tag-airlines","15":"tag-crime","16":"tag-crime-u0026-justice","17":"tag-delta","18":"tag-delta-air-lines","19":"tag-enabled","20":"tag-florida","21":"tag-fraud","22":"tag-highlights","23":"tag-industry","24":"tag-justice","25":"tag-legal","26":"tag-lines","27":"tag-local","28":"tag-local-affiliate-travel","29":"tag-modular","30":"tag-modular-story","31":"tag-negative","32":"tag-news","33":"tag-overall","34":"tag-overall-negative","35":"tag-southwest","36":"tag-southwest-airlines","37":"tag-story","38":"tag-story-highlights-ai-enabled","39":"tag-travel","40":"tag-u0026","41":"tag-united","42":"tag-united-airlines","43":"tag-united-states","44":"tag-us","45":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114678823959181458","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}