Tirone Alexander, 35, has been convicted of impersonating a flight attendant at least 120 times in order to get free commercial airline flights between 2018 and 2024 . He also doesn’t know how to spell “Tyrone.”
There is a common airline policy (that I never heard of before) allowing flight attendants and pilots from other airlines to fly for free. Alexander knew about the benefit because he had worked as a flight attendant for regional airlines between 2013 and 2015. He visited airline websites and checked the “flight attendant” option during the online check-in process. There he would find a form asking applicants to list their current employer in the industry, their hiring date, and badge number. Alexander faked all of it and counted on no one bothering to check. No one did.
Almost all examples of audacious cheating and grifting depend on 1) people trusting strangers to be honest, which is, sadly, a mistake; 2) people not doing their jobs diligently, which many don’t; 3) systems that have yawning loopholes that sociopaths can exploit, and 4) the cheater/con artist having boundless audacity.
Number 4 eventually gets most cheaters caught.
Alexander has been found guilty of four counts of wire fraud and one count of fraudulently accessing a restricted area of the airport. He faces decades in prison at his sentencing, which is scheduled for August 25.
Meanwhile, the airlines will be tightening their free flight policies, and maybe eliminating them. As is so often the case, the rare cheat spoils a nice thing for everyone else.
Ethics Alarms 
“Meanwhile, the airlines will be tightening their free flight policies, and maybe eliminating them. As is so often the case, the rare cheat spoils a nice thing for everyone else.”
As opposed to just doing their jobs more diligently and making sure people who check the flight attendant option are actually flight attendants. How hard would it be to produce a database of current flight attendants to check against?
Not hard. Good point. Bureaucracies are lazy, incompetent and dumb, and the bigger one is, the more of each applies. And yet we’re supposed to trust the government to use our money efficiently, despite all our experience indicating this is a futile hope.
Correct, which is why we have to provide the government information at tax time when they surely have it already.
Oh they have — or will have — a lot of it but, depending on where your income comes from, they may not have a lot of that info. Someone like Jack, who is self-employed, they depend on him being largely honest to report his income. If you’re Jack Marshall, that’s a good bet. If you’re Bernie Madoff, not so much.
But even the stuff the IRS does have, they may not have it when you file your tax return. W-2’s, for example, are sent to Social Security and not the IRS, and SSA has to forward that data to the IRS (including those few who still file paper forms).
The IRS does have a matching program to try and match the documents they receive with the tax returns you file, but guess what? It takes them over a year to do that. So if you file a 2024 tax return this past April but leave off a W-2, it won’t be until next May or June that you’re likely to get a letter from the IRS asking about it. But hey, at least now they have computers (sorta) and can try to match up this stuff.