A former Toronto flight attendant who posted on social media of a jet-setting lifestyle with trips from Los Angeles to Thailand has pleaded guilty to cheating three U.S. airlines out of hundreds of free flights by pretending to be a pilot. Dallas Pokornik used a forged pilot ID from a Toronto-based airline to get seats that are offered as a courtesy to pilots on more than 200 flights for about four years before his identification was flagged in Panama in October. That’s where the 34-year-old was arrested and extradited to Hawaii to face charges including wire fraud, court documents filed there say. An airline employee “took a picture of the forged badge” and sent it to Toronto, where “the defendant’s former employer reviewed the same picture of the badge and confirmed the badge to be fake,” a plea agreement says. The three U.S. airlines identified in the agreement are based in Chicago, Ill., Honolulu, Hawaii, and Fort Worth, Texas. The Toronto airline isn’t identified, but Porter Airlines does code-share with some airlines based in those cities. “We’re unable to verify any details related to this story,” Porter Airlines said in a statement to CTV News on Monday. Pokornik’s public defender didn’t respond to questions from CTV News on Monday. In one video post, Pokornik smiles and nods his head as his plane sits at Heathrow airport in the U.K. In another, he’s dancing at a floating bar in Phuket, Thailand. Another video shows Pokornik walking through an airport with a caption that says, “Many of my friends are married. Many of my friends are having kids. I’m over here trying to avoid checking my bag and hoping for a window seat.” As a former employee, Pokornik may have had some insight into how to take advantage of some of the perks, said CTV’s aviation expert, Phyl Durdey. “As an ex-employee of an airline, they knew what the protocols were, and how to get through security,” Durdy said. Usually the pilot must show up with a security card issued by an airport, as well as a pilot’s ID, and they must be in uniform. Durdey cautioned airline employees from reading too much into a uniform, pointing out that realistic-looking uniforms can easily be purchased online. Security around those ID cards may have to be looked at, possibly as part of a review that would include how an Ontario pilot, Geoffrey Wall, may have used a forged pilot’s license to continue flying for Air Canada for almost two decades, Durdey said. “I was so surprised when I heard about this. Security at airports is so strict at the moment,” Durdey said. According to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Hawaii, the fraud spanned from January 2020 to Oct. 28, 2024, and the accused used a fake employee identification card to access the free flights. “According to court documents, Pokornik, a former flight attendant for a commercial airline in Canada, admitted to falsely posing as a commercial pilot to get hundreds of free flights on three different airlines,” the news release read. It went on to say that as part of a plea agreement, Pokornik agreed to pay restitution to the three airlines, which are based in the U.S. “Travel security protocols help keep our citizens and visitors safe, and anyone who breaches those protocols should expect to be brought to justice,” U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson said in a written statement. “We thank our law enforcement partners at Homeland Security Investigations and abroad for helping us hold this fraudster accountable.” The Associated Press previously reported that the Pokornik was a flight attendant for a Toronto-based airline between 2017 and 2019. With files from The Associated Press
