A former flight attendant is accused of fooling airlines into giving him free flights. But how?

A former flight attendant accused of posing as a pilot and working as an airline employee fooled three U.S. carriers into giving him hundreds of free tickets over a span of four years, federal authorities say. But precisely how he is alleged to have done it—and why the airlines wouldn't have caught on sooner—has industry insiders scratching their heads. Dallas Pokornik, 33, of Toronto, was arrested in Panama after being indicted on wire fraud charges in federal court in Hawaii last October. He pleaded not guilty following his extradition to the United States. His federal public defender declined to discuss the case. According to court documents, Pokornik was a flight attendant for a Toronto-based airline from 2017 to 2019, then used fraudulent employee identification from that carrier to obtain tickets reserved for pilots and flight attendants on three other airlines. Court documents contained no explanation of why, in an industry focused on flight and airport safety, the airlines didn't recognize the credentials as invalid. The indictment did not identify any of the airlines involved but said the U.S. carriers are based in Honolulu, Chicago, and Fort Worth, Texas. A spokesperson for Hawaiian Airlines said the company does not comment on litigation. Representatives for United Airlines and American Airlines did not immediately respond to emails from The Associated Press. John Cox, a retired pilot who runs an aviation safety firm in St. Petersburg, Florida, called the allegations surprising, considering the cross-checking that airlines are able to do to verify the employment of a crew member seeking to fly on another airline. Airlines generally rely on databases of active airline employees maintained on third-party websites to check whether someone is actually an employee. "The only thing I can think is that they did not show him as no longer employed by the airline," Cox said in a phone interview. "Consequently, when the checks were made at the gate, he showed up as a valid employee." Passenger airlines typically offer such free or steeply discounted standby seats, when available, to their own crew members or those of other carriers—a courtesy that makes the whole industry function better, by getting crew members where they need to go. This article was provided by The Associated Press.