Man Poses as Flight Attendant to Score Free Flights for Nearly Six Years

There’s an entire industry dedicated to budget travel and ways to book inexpensive flights, but one Florida man took it much, much further.

On June 5, a federal jury convicted 35-year-old Tiron Alexander on charges of wire fraud and unlawfully entering secure airport areas after he orchestrated one of the boldest travel fraud schemes in recent US history. Over a six-year period, Alexander took advantage of an airline employee travel benefit, despite not being an airline employee, to book and fly on more than 120 flights without paying.

How the scheme worked

From 2018 to early 2024, Alexander repeatedly posed as a flight attendant to use an airline employee perk. It allows pilots and cabin crew from competing airlines to fly free as “non-revenue” passengers on a handful of US airlines, not just the one they work for. It’s designed to support airline staff logistics for crew who need to quickly move around the country, but it became the foundation of Alexander’s illegal travel strategy.

Alexander somehow gained access to the internal booking system for the program, then fabricated credentials. He claimed to work at six different airlines, generating approximately 30 fake badge numbers and hire dates in the process. He used this to fly on several major US carriers, including Delta, Southwest, and Spirit Airlines. His destinations ranged from Atlanta and Dallas to Las Vegas and Los Angeles, and took more than 120 free flights, including 34 on Spirit Airlines.

How he got caught

The unraveling of Alexander’s scheme began when he pushed his luck one too many times with Spirit Airlines. After 34 flights, Spirit Airlines initiated a review and eventually flagged the flights, which alerted authorities. Though Alexander fabricated his workplace credentials, he had to use his real name and birthday for boarding passes, creating a clear digital trail. In 2023, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) launched an investigation, culminating in Alexander’s arrest in early 2025 while he attempted to board a flight from San Francisco to Australia.

During every flight, he passed all TSA security checks, including ID verification and physical screening. TSA later said in a statement to other news outlets that while his credentials were fake, it was a breach in the airline verification process, not the airport security process.

On June 5, he was found guilty on four counts of wire fraud and one count of entering a secure airport area under false pretenses. Each wire fraud count carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, while the false pretenses charge could add up to 10 years, for a possible total of 30 years behind bars. Sentencing is scheduled for August 25, 2025.

While Alexander is the most recent large-scale case of airline fraud, he’s not the most famous. That title probably belongs to Frank Abagnale, Jr., who flew more than one million miles for free while pretending to be a Pan-Am pilot in the 1960s. His story was adapted into the Leonardo DiCaprio movie Catch Me If You Can. After being released from jail, he went on to make millions as a security consultant for the US government.