Federal authorities have stated that a former flight attendant, accused of fraud, impersonation, and falsely claiming to be a pilot and airline employee, successfully deceived three major American airlines for four years to obtain hundreds of free tickets. However, the method he allegedly used and the airlines' failure to notice it sooner have puzzled aviation experts.Dallas Bokernik (33), a Toronto resident, was arrested in Panama. He was charged with wire fraud in a federal court in Hawaii last October. Last Tuesday, after being extradited to the United States, he pleaded not guilty. His federal public defender declined to comment on the case.According to court documents, Bokernik worked as a flight attendant for a Toronto-based airline between 2017 and 2019. He then used forged employee IDs from that airline to get free travel passes for pilots and flight attendants on three other airlines. The court documents did not explain why the airlines, in an industry that places a heavy emphasis on aviation and airport security, failed to realize the IDs were invalid.John Cox, a retired pilot who runs an aviation safety company in St. Petersburg, Florida, described the allegations as surprising, given the mutual checks airlines perform to verify the employment status of crew members traveling on other carriers.Cox said, 'The only thing that comes to mind is that he didn't show up in the records as no longer being employed by the company, so when they did the checks at the gate to board, he showed up as an employee who was entitled to that.'
