A man who was sued after costing an airline $21,000,000 was accused making reservations for 14 flights he never booked.
Steven Rothstein was among 66 people who purchased American Airlines’ lifetime first-class tickets, called the AAirpass, for $250,000. Launched in 1981, Steven bought his ‘golden ticket’ in 1987.
In the 21 years that followed, the stockbroker racked up 30 million miles across 10,000 flights with the company – all covered by the $250k he’d first put down.
The airline had launched the ticket to make up for lost profit after financial struggles, however, Steven’s excessive flying saw them lose out on $21 million profit.
American Airlines revoked Steven’s pass in 2008, mid travel-day. They went on to sue him, but not because of the amount of flights he’d booked.
Steven Rothstein had a truly sad reason for booking so many American Airlines flights (Caroline Rothstein)
Instead, the company sued him for fraud, accusing him of booking seats for non-existent passengers under names such as ‘Bag Rothstein’ and ‘Steven Rothstein Jr’, whilst also booking tickets for flights he was never planning to board.
Steven later explained to his daughter, journalist Caroline Rothstein, the sad reason behind his flight-booking – and reserving some 2,000 empty plane seats.
In a piece written for Narritively in 2019, later published in the Guardian, Caroline explained how she read through some 80 court documents about the case in full, discovering that, according to a senior analyst at American Airlines, ‘of the 3,009 flight segments Dad booked for himself from May 2005 to December 2008, he either canceled or was a “no-show” for 84% of those reservations.’
The investigation said Steven made ‘companion reservations’ using his AAirpass for at least 41 flight segments between December 2003 and April 2004, but Caroline writes the airline had ‘condoned his booking companion seats under fictitious names for years.’
Post 9/11, he was asked to stop booking flights this way, and Steven agreed. Caroline claimed American Airlines ‘continued investigating him, looking for a way to push him out.’
Caroline Rothstein (Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival)
She wrote: “Another document shows that American contends that 14 incidents from August 2006 to November 2008 were considered ‘fraudulent’ under their alleged terms – but Dad was never notified that they were considered fraudulent at the time they were made.”
In her deposition, American Airlines Platinum desk employee Lorraine Cross said she hadn’t received ‘any written directions from American Airlines regarding what was and was not “acceptable practice for making reservations for the Executive Platinum customers,”‘ Caroline explained.
She continued: “Lorraine said she didn’t suspect misuse of his AAirpass; they were the ones handling all of his bookings. Yet, they – Lorraine, and anyone else in reservations – weren’t contacted at all once revenues began the investigations.”
Steven’s wife added: “Steven never made a single reservation on his own on a computer. Every single reservation he ever made was made with an American Airlines paid employee.”
Despite American Airlines’ initial legal action, they and Rothstein eventually settled outside of court.