Friendly but illegal CO airfare discounts land man in jail
 

So, wondering where all the upgrades out of EWR were going http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

From this morning's Newark Star Ledger

A former Continental Airlines supervisor was sentenced yesterday to five months in prison and five months of house arrest and ordered to repay close to $90,000 after pleading guilty to giving family and friends substantial breaks on airfares and improper flight upgrades.

In handing down his sentence, U.S. District Judge Harold A. Ackerman in Newark accused Irvin Cruz, 31, of Perth Amboy of engaging in an "orgy" of favors at the expense of the airline.


Full Story:
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index....r/1578c07.html

[This message has been edited by NJDavid (edited 01-04-2002).]

Among other statements in the article:
It sounds to me like Cruz could have used some FT'ers as expert witnesses in his defense. I'm sure we could have knocked the $90,000 in airfare down to $20 or $30 grand.

that's what happens when you steal from your employer.

Check out the guy's restitution schedule:

"...while the restitution schedule calls for Cruz to make his repayments at a rate of $200 a month..."

Let's see. That's $88,013 divided by $200 a month = 440 months. That's almost 37 YEARS!

I wonder if CO will even be in business by the time he gets around to paying them off!

I wonder if he granted lots of waivers of change fees as well. Those $3 operations could add up to a lot if valued at $100 a pop.

What he did was wrong, but sometimes the damage estimates do get inflated.

What this sounds like to me (charging $209 for a round-trip flight that would have cost $2,225) is charging someone the cheapest advance purchase fare for what really was a walk-up passenger. At the airport, supervisors have the authority to override the normal fare rules and issue a ticket at whatever price they approve. This is necessary so that they can handle situations whereby there's a ticketing mistake that's clearly the airline's fault, but isn't discovered until the day of departure at the airport. Of course, this authority is only supposed to be used in genuine situations. What it sounds like in this example is that the supervisor was using/abusing this ability to give cheap walk-up tickets to his friends.

Five months in the slammer for stealing 90 grand is way too lenient. Yes it was a stupid thing to do, but this was a serious felony. I hope the state of New Jersey will find another avenue for prosecution as well.