JetBlue Agent Faces 20 Years for Scamming Airline

Cailey Rizzo

A former JetBlue employee is facing up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to scamming the airline for almost $1 million in flights.

The Boston Logan Airport gate agent, Tiffany Jenkins, encouraged friends and family to purchase inexpensive tickets from the airline (like the $45 tickets from Long Beach to Las Vegas) and then she would switch their cheaper tickets to a pricier international destination.

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Jenkins used the “involuntary exchange” computer function that is typically used for when passengers experience a death in the family or miss their flights, The Boston Globe reported.

Over the course of 15 months, Jenkins upgraded 505 flights for more than 100 different people.

All of these incidents left a paper trail, making it easy to discover exactly what Jenkins was doing. The Globe reported that Jenkins scammed the airline out of approximately $785,000 in the scam.

She plead guilty to three counts of wire fraud and now faces 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, according to a statement from U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling released on Friday. Jenkins was arrested for the crime in November 2018.

Her sentencing is in January 2020.