Business|Man Boarded Delta Flight Using Ticket Ruse, U.S. Says
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/20/business/delta-unticketed-passenger-arrested.html
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Man Boarded Delta Flight Using Ticket Ruse, U.S. Says
By taking pictures of other passengers’ boarding passes on their phones, the man was able to board a Delta Air Lines flight in Salt Lake City on Sunday, according to a federal complaint.
A Texas man was arrested in Salt Lake City on Sunday after he boarded a Delta Air Lines flight without a ticket by using a photo he had taken of another passenger’s boarding pass while they were not looking, according to court documents.
The man, Wicliff Yves Fleurizard, 26, faces one felony count of stowaways on vessels or aircraft, according to a complaint filed on Monday in U.S. District Court in Utah. He was being held at the Salt Lake County Metro Jail, according to the Salt Lake City Police Department.
After boarding a Delta flight bound for Austin, Texas, on Sunday, Mr. Fleurizard went to the lavatory at the front of the plane, and stayed in there until the flight had completely boarded and the doors were secured, according to the federal complaint.
Mr. Fleurizard then made his way toward the back of the plane, and he went into a lavatory there, according to court records. When he came out, a flight attendant noticed that there were no open seats just as the plane was about to taxi to the runway, court records show.
The flight attendant asked Mr. Fleurizard where his seat was, and he said it was 21F, which was already taken, the complaint states. After flight attendants couldn’t find Mr. Fleurizard on their manifest, they realized he wasn’t authorized to be on the flight, and the plane returned to the gate, according to the complaint.
Mr. Fleurizard told the police that he had been on a snowboarding trip in Park City, Utah, and that he needed to go home to see his family, according to the complaint. He said that he had been given a Southwest Airlines “buddy pass” by a friend, the complaint said.
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