TA

I would love to know if someone has interviewed her and found out what she's trying to do? Is she in an endless quest to find some long lost family member? Is she on a global treasure hunt at the command of an evil mastermind? Or is she just crazy?

Does she come off as sane when people encounter her in person? She doesn't look overly disheveled or suspicious on first glance.

Serial Stowaway Found At Chicago O'Hare Twice Within Days - One Mile at a Time

KDS777

Doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.

FWIW.......

Giggleswick

From the Guardian (UK): https://www.theguardian.com/society/...ealth-homeless
The woman is mentally ill. If you've ever had a friend or relative with a psychosis, you might not find her story as amusing as it seems at first glance.

Jaimito Cartero

If only she had found FT. I know people who have paid people to take their MR flights...

Giggleswick

For some reason, the edit function won't work for me.
I just wanted to specify that the Guardian story to which I linked is by somebody who has spoken with her repeatedly, as requested by the OP.

LtKernelPanic

This woman is mentally ill. She needs treatment in a mental hospital not time in a prison.

StartinSanDiego

She may be, or rather, probably is, mentally ill, but one must admire her chutzpah. It's frightening to think that airport security and a slew of airlines can't stop one little old lady from sneaking by. As noted above, some loved one somewhere is probably wringing their hands and losing sleep over her.

MaxBuck

I actually think it more likely that no one is.

nd2010

Can we organize to pay her to do our mileage runs?

darthbimmer

The reporting from various sources leads me to believe she's paranoid schizophrenic. She has delusional beliefs that drive some of her reasons to fly. Other times she seems compelled to fly without being able to express a reason why. Aside from these issues she seems able to take care of herself, functionally. That's not true of schizophrenia sufferers in generally but is more true of the paranoid schizophrenic subcategory.

The fact she's able to function/appear as "normal" in certain respects is critical to how she does what she does. As you note, she doesn't look overly disheveled or suspicious at first glance. A big part of that is she is able to keep herself clean, dressed, fed, and physically relatively healthy. (For many suffering mental illness these are NOT true.) From various accounts she can hold at least a short, on-point conversation. Probably she doesn't veer off into crazy-talk unless prodded. Above all, she's able to keep her thoughts organized to a certain degree. She enters an airport knowing what to do. She has a feasible plan. When challenged or blocked, she retreats and tries again. Many who suffer mental illness are not able to keep it together to this degree in challenging public situations.

HMPS

Maybe she is trying to collect FF miles because she has exhausted CC sign up bonuses due to Chase 5 / 24 ?

TA

Wow, this story, suggested thanks to those above, answered all my questions and more:

a330boston

And once again, we have another instance of our country's failure to take care of its mentally ill. Sadly, our president has decided to spend more money upgrading the refrigerators on his 747.

wendyg

From the security standpoint, she's a social engineer: she plays on people's expectations that anyone who looks like a grandmother is harmless, and may be confused but is surely not deliberately trying to deceive.

wg

enviroian

I wonder if the airline would count honorary EQM's for her travels. Obviously EQD would be an issue lol