Teenager Breaches Govt Airline, Airports with Ruse

Using two assumed identities, and his own real name, Adam Tait, a 17-year-old youth convinced a government owned airline, an airport director, and several other airline owners he was a tycoon launching his own airline, according to Timesonline. Tait bought websites in the name of American Global Group and Island Airways, then contacted established airlines to arrange franchise agreements. Tait told them his American parent company had a fleet of 12 jets; Tait established industry credibility with a published article that legitimized his bogus operation in Airliner World, a publication "dedicated to bringing its readers the latest developments from across the global airline scene."

“We spoke to a few contacts in the industry," said, Richard Maslen, Airliner World's deputy editor, "and they had also heard whispers about this proposed start-up and as a result we ran a small news piece in the magazine.”

The commercial manager and managing director of Aurigny, an airline owned by the Guernsey (Channel Island to the northwest of Jersey) government, held talks with Tait for months! Malcolm Coupar and Malcolm Hart thought they were speaking to Davis Rich, one of Tait's assumed names.

“Some of the things he said were the sort of things that were indicative that there might have been some substance to his claims,” said Coupar. “If they were real then there would have been opportunities for us to expand our business and that’s not the sort of thing we are going to ignore.” Tait also contacted other airlines including Titan Airways and Aer Arann.

Seventeen year-old Tait actually had a 90-minute face-to-face meeting with Julian Green, the director of Jersey Airport, located in the parish of Saint Peter, one of the British Crown Dependencies in the Channel Islands. “Jersey airport can confirm it has had discussions with Adam Tait over recent weeks about an ambitious network of services between Jersey, the UK and Europe.

Tait even contacted a jet marketing agent at Airstream Jets, a Jet charter and pilot service, whose company was willing to lease Tait a Jet. Airstream even offered to pick him up and chauffeur him to the airport to inspect the plane, where Tait and an unknown number of his "colleagues" ended up before the police intervened. Tait had intended to start the jet's engines. It doesn't say much about the security of airports, airlines, and potentially the airways, when economic desperation and greed precede reason.