Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links below. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
In March 2024, I wrote about a man who stowed away on Delta Air Lines flight DL1683 from Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) to Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS) on March 17th. He cleverly took a photo of a child’s boarding pass and used it to board the plane after clearing security with a Southwest “buddy pass.”
The 27-year-old man named Wicliff Yves Fleurizard did not clear the standby lists for several Southwest flights. He was returning home from a ski trip in Park City, UT and decided that he needed to get creative. He snapped photos of several passengers phones and managed to get a good enough shot of the child’s boarding pass. He was arrested at the time on suspicion of being a stowaway on an aircraft after he hid in the lavatories while hoping to slip into an empty seat once the plane was fully boarded.
Fox 13 reported at the time that court documents stated that after he boarded the flight, “Fleurizard spent a significant amount of time in the lavatory while others were boarding and he did not lock the door while occupying the lavatory.” Right before flight attendants closed the aircraft’s doors, he made his way from the lavatory in the front of the plane to the one in the back. When he reemerged, a flight attendant noticed that there were no empty seats and stopped him to help him find his seat. When he did not have one, the plane stopped taxiing and returned to the gate.
Fleurizard has now admitted to being a stowaway on the aircraft. This carries a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment plus a fine of $250,000. I’m sure he’ll also be losing his buddy pass privileges. Flights are almost all at capacity (or over it) during the busy Spring Break period in March and April. This man might have gotten away with sneaking onto the aircraft had there been an empty seat for him. Since there were no seats, it was easy to detect the interloper.
Anthony’s Take: This was an all-around dumb idea. Fleurizard will certainly be banned from flying Delta, lose his buddy pass, and faces some stiff penalties for his actions.
User Generated Content Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat encourages constructive discussions, comments, and questions. Responses are not provided by or commissioned by any bank advertisers. These responses have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the responsibility of the bank advertiser to respond to comments.
Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
