This boarding by-pass won’t fly.
A Texas man has been arrested on felony charges using a photo of a fellow passenger’s boarding pass to sneak aboard a flight leaving Salt Lake City, Utah on Sunday.
The passenger admitted he “made a mistake” and was “only trying to get home,” per a criminal complaint filed at the U.S. District Court of Utah.
The culprit, Wicliff Fleurizard, 26, had reportedly boarded a Delta Flight plane to Austin, Texas using a picture of an unaccompanied female minor’s boarding pass.
The gate-crasher had reportedly snapped the photo of said ticket — which was purchased by her father — while she wasn’t looking.
Airport security footage shows the George, Texas native surreptitiously snapping phone pictures of fellow flyer’s tickets near the boarding area, before using them to board the plane, KTLA reported.
Delta gate agents reportedly grew suspicious after said minor tried to board, whereupon their system showed that she was already aboard.
Meanwhile, flight attendants noted that Fleurizard also started to behave strangely once aboard the plane, presumably in an attempt to conceal that he didn’t have a seat.
The Texan reportedly an inordinate amount of time in the lavatory while the other passengers boarded. He then migrated to the restroom after all the flyers had sat down and the door was secured.
When flight attendants confronted the wandering passenger, the im-pass-anator motioned to his alleged seat, but it was already occupied.
Crewmembers subsequently discovered that Fluerizard didn’t have a legitimate ticket, prompting the plane to return to the gate, where he was met by local authorities.
He reportedly told them that he’d been on a snowboarding trip in Park City, Utah, and was trying to get home to meet relatives visiting from Florida.
Fluerizard had reportedly been using a “buddy pass” — discounted standby tickets airline employees can share with friends and family — to board a flight with Southwest Airlines.
However, after getting rejected from two overbooked flights, the sky scammer departed the boarding area and went to the Delta Gate instead.
Fluerizard’s ill-advised air-con earned him a federal charge for stowing away aboard an airplane.
In a statement, a Delta spokesperson said they are “cooperating with law enforcement and relevant federal agencies regarding an investigation into the” bootleg boarding pass incident.
“We defer any additional questions to law enforcement,” they said.