Former Air India staffer held for hacking into its website

A 23-year- old former Air India employee has been arrested for allegedly hacking into the airlines internal system for managing frequent fliers accounts, redeeming miles to convert them into tickets and selling them off to travel agents, police said today.

The accused, Anitesh Giri Goswami, is a graduate in Computer Application and has worked for leading airlines, including Air India and now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines.

He was running the racket from Jodhpur, Additional Commissioner of Police (Economic Offences Wing) Arun Kampani 

The accused was well versed with online ticket booking  system and functioning of intranet and internet-based systems of Air India. He first understood the functioning of the ticketing system as well as the points/miles system of the airlines and then hacked into the Loyalty Plus programme.

After hacking into the system, he verified and upgraded hundreds of dormant accounts of Frequent Flyer members by allegedly uploading forged documents.

Thereafter, the accused used these membership accounts and the Frequent Flyer miles/points accumulated in these accounts for booking airline tickets. These tickets were then sold to various travel/ticketing agents based in cities like Pune, Delhi, Jaipur and Mumbai," he said.

The accused worked as Load and Trim Officer at Jodhpur airport when he was with Air India. Later he left the job and started exploiting the loopholes in the functioning of the Frequent Flyer Programme. He was arrested from his rented accommodation in Jaipur on Friday, Kampani said.