Every so often we hear stories of people sneaking onto flights. Sometimes they’re successful, and sometimes they immediately get caught. A bit over a week ago, someone tried to sneak onto a Delta flight, using a method I’ve never heard of. And he almost got away with it, except for one little problem…
Continue reading: Man Creatively Sneaks Onto Delta Flight, But Gets Caught
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
No, if he was smart he would have checked the load on Expert Flyer first to see if it would go out with seats available, lol.
Sneaky. All that risk and effort when he should have just made plans like everyone else. Ah the stupidity of youth.
Wouldn't the FAs have noticed that a seat that was supposed to be empty was occupied?
@ eaci -- On US airlines, flights attendants don't typically do a seat count, unless they have an obvious discrepancy or problem.
I once sneaked off a Delta flight. I then got SkyPesos credit, which isn't much.
I wonder what I should have done in retrospect.
I was ticketed on XXX-SLC-(sneaked off the plane)LAX-NRT-XXX and then the return. Once I sneaked off the plane, I got on a paid SLC-SFO and SFO-LAX flight. I needed to be in San Francisco for a few hours but didn't know this when I originally booked my ticket.
I’m here for all the Tim Dunn shade.
Nothing Ben, or anyone else, writes will stop him from coming back. His weird OCD demands it!
Many airlines lock the toilets before take-off and when doing so, they check no-one is inside. Surprised Delta doesn't do this.
"He was also of course brilliant for sneaking onto a Delta flight; who wouldn’t want to fly with the airline that gets a revenue premium for its excellence, and which has Airbus A350-1000s on order "
OMG I love you for this.
How was he able to take photos of boarding passes of others without their knowledge?
Wouldn't the scanner have beeped or alerted that that BP had already been scanned?
Wouldn't flight close procedures have indicated that there was 1 more pax scanned and on board than seats available?
Probably worked at a higher average but .. 1/3 is a good batting average in baseball.
Many airlines lock the lav doors during boarding and before landing to make sure people are all fully in the cabin.
Delta and many FAs have mobile devices that have passenger manifests and a seat map. The fact that the guy fumbled to find a seat after the door was already closed would have flagged attention even if there were seats.
and the premium he would find on Delta that he wouldn't find on Southwest is free Wifi (yes, really free, not AA's version) and a seat assignment.
I hope he enjoys the snow in Texas; I am sure he will be added to the No-Fly list.
Nice photo of the Southwest check-in area and kiosks. That guy’s ass is hot in those shorts. I see what you did there Ben 🙂
For that matter if it's within two hours of flight time, seat maps revert to gate control, and you can't really see them anywhere (even on FlightAware) unless you actually book a ticket and proceed to pick a seat assignment on their own site. But ya: at least he could have seen inventory, and that would have been correct!
It should have been detected at the gate. Consider:
A) He boards but that passenger already boarded, the system can't count it twice
B) He boards but the passenger did not board yet, but then there is an error or problem when the real passenger boards
I had a similar experience that my travel companion have my boarding pass scanned right after me. The equipment had a noise and also the gate agent checked the screen and said this boarding pass has been scanned already. Therefore, the gate agent should be able to catch that the same boarding pass being scanned twice.
He did some clever things, but if they wouldn’t let him on because the flight was full, what made him think he would find an empty seat once on board?
I feel sorry for the employee who gave him the buddy pass. This won’t be good for their career.
eaci is probably referring to even if the flight was not full and an unoccupied seat was taken afterwards, the flight attendants should have noticed a discrepancy. So, Ben explained that in this case the flight attendants of U.S. airlines usually do not do a seat count.
For a country that is so paranoid about security, I find security to be particularly lax in the US. Most of it is just for show and largely ineffective.
The gate agent messed up here. Scanning the same boarding pass twice triggers an alarm. Other possibility would be that the real passenger showed up at the gate (where his pass was photographed by the intruder), but then decided to be a no-show.
His listed SWA flight was full. He went over to Delta not knowing it was also full.
According to NBC and other media outlets, the criminal is Wicliff Yves Fleurizard, 26, and he already had an arrest warrant from Austin because of having ‘violent tendencies.'
"who wouldn’t want to fly with the airline that gets a revenue premium for its excellence"
Hahahahahaha, that is awesome. Thanks for the amusement, Ben!
I have read this story 3 differnt times, told 3 different ways, he had a unaccompanied minor ticket and got caught, he tried to get past the gate agent and the scanner went off he was suppose to be on board, and he didn't look like a UM
Great advertisement for how useless the buddy pass is as an earned benefit when many flights aren’t going out with any empty seats.
Please dont give this guy any credit. Hes a bad guy. A thief at best. Lifetime no-fly is where his punishment should start, but time federal lockup is deserved.
Disturbed that a photo of a boarding pass is enough to fool the system. Need something like checks which have a ghost image to detect Xerox copies.
Also, gate agents should have raised a flag. Each "beep" is reflected as the official manifest. If there had been empty seats, he would have gotten away with it.
Ideally, it would be an NFC "pass" like you get for many sporting events (and concerts?). Photos of those are meaningless.
But if you watch the video, the system caught that the boarding pass had already been used, but the gate agent let the real ticket holder go anyway. That's a human factors problem.
Most flights are 100%. Also, how was he going to leave the lav and just sit down in an empty seat without being caught. Or a passenger asking the flight attendant about the odd behavior. What an idiot.
When I fly Qantas I see them check the toilets and then do a head count. So that would not work.
If delta has WiFi on their planes. Which aa and WN do
Delta… it’s not a brand standard to have Wi-Fi on their planes… narrowbody or widebody
Even if seat maps showed empty seats, they would end up occupied by standby pax (rev & nonrev). I’ve seen AA and DL flights with over 100+ pax standing by. The WN employee who allowed him to use the buddy pass at a minimum lost their nonrev benefits or worse, their job.
Funny you say that. Two years ago we had a flight from aspen to Chicago after days of delays due to snow. There were two united flights taking off within a couple of hours and the second one got cancelled. So many people had been stranded over 72 hours but our flight took off with quite a few empty seats. Never understood that one? (Maybe they had to limit weight?)
Wouldn't an alert be raised when the same barcode was scanned twice when boarding?
So wouldn’t they have verified the name of the boarding pass scanned to his Id or at least investigate why when the boarding pass scanned it shows up as already on board. delta agents dropped the ball big time
When I was a teenager, long ago, I flew a lot. One time, I asked at a gate if I could get an upgrade to first class, if they had any extra seats. She started laughing in my face and saying, "yeah right, for an extra $3000" which I knew was absurd because I had heard of people getting bumped onto first class several times.
So, I devised a plan to wait until final boarding and then go snag an extra first-class seat. I walked onto the plane, into first class, and saw an empty seat. When I took that seat, the gal who was actually assigned to it happened to board after the "final" boarding call. The flight attendant corrected the situation and I was back in coach.
My next flight with first class was a new challenge. Now I waited after "final," as it turned out, long after, until they actually started to close the gate doors. I got up, said "whoops sorry!" and casually walked on. I peered into first class, saw an empty seat, looked at my ticket as if to verify, and I sat down. That was it, first class baby! I even got served alcohol, no questions asked. First class food, too. This was my reward for being a cocky teenager.
This was a fun little game, the penalty for getting caught was being bumped to my assigned seat (much better than being arrested like this poor fellow.) I only found two ways to get caught, the first being getting on too early, and the second being flying Delta (or United, I can't remember for sure.) That airline was the only one that had a flight attendant check the manifest against the seated passengers in first class. If you were in an unassigned seat, she would ask to see your ticket. No other airline I tried did this.
I stopped doing this when I started travelling with other people.