A Florida man was found guilty of wire fraud and illegally entering secure airport areas after impersonating pilots and flight attendants to fraudulently take more than 120 free flights over six years.
Tiron Alexander, 35, posed as a pilot or flight attendant with seven different airlines, using 30 fake credentials and stolen badge numbers from real airline employees to non-rev on multiple carriers. He booked the flights through Spirit Airlines’ employee travel portal, according to a report from View From The Wing.
As it turns out, Alexander was actually employed by an airline from 2015 until his arrest in 2024. However, it’s unclear which airline he worked for or what position he held.
He is scheduled for sentencing on Aug. 25 and faces up to 20 years in federal prison, along with significant fines.
The investigation was conducted by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
“Catch me if you can”, 2025 edition!
First thought I had…
Someone had this figured out to the T, before the bust happened.
For the love of all that is holy, what good is “security” or “real ID” or the TSA when some nobody can just waltz through airport secure areas and even mingle with the flight crew? Prosecute the security people first!
Arthur… Arthur… ARTHUR!
You are applying waay too much common sense to the deeper happenings within a transportation sector of the US, which is designed to “make people feel safe”.
Florida man has a brain. Promote now.
Yes, you are right. This man needs to be in charge of the DOGE administration as someone put it: “new broom sweeps clean, but old broom, he knows de corners”.
Guy gets some free rides. Doesn’t hurt anyone, damage anything. Just some man-made rules. Spends the rest of his life in prison?
Sounds like vindictive overreach on the TSA side. Although vindictive is probably part of the TSA charter.
Security is to verify who the person is – all airport entrants are scanned, including flight crew, so this man was in compliance.
The airlines all share access to a computer bank of air carrier employees so I’m puzzled how this man was granted access since the outside agent is supposed to verify that the jump seat applicant is a valid employee. That’s probably how he was picked up though – an agent probably saw he was not in the computer employee list and flagged him.