How to spot fake flight tickets

The skies have never been more crowded. In 2025, airlines are expected to carry a record 5.2 billion passengers, a 6.7% increase from 2024 — the first time ever surpassing the 5 billion mark. 

At the same time, digital ticketing has become the overwhelmingly dominant norm: 85% of airline bookings are now expected to be completed through digital channels, with the majority of flight documents delivered via email or mobile apps.

As travel picks up, and the medium becomes predominantly digital, it opens the flood gates to anyone (from seasoned fraudsters to disgruntled passengers) to take advantage. 

Fueled by generative AI, online document templates, and accessible forgery tools, criminals now effortlessly fabricate convincing flight tickets and boarding passes. These fraudulent files can manipulate travel insurance claims, exploit refund processes, or deceive immigration officers, bypassing risk teams and costing institutions millions.

Worse yet, modern fakes are harder to detect manually than ever before. Understanding the anatomy of real flight documents (and recognizing telltale signs of digital tampering) is essential to maintaining the integrity of your verification processes.

Read on to learn what flight tickets are, why they're crucial for travel verification, and how advanced AI can detect these fakes automatically. 

For more insights on document fraud, check out our “How to spot fake documents” blog.

What are flight tickets?

Flight documents (flight tickets, e-tickets, boarding passes) verify reservation status and travel details at different stages of a passenger's journey. 

While often confused with boarding passes, flight tickets confirm purchase and reservation, while boarding passes enable physical movement through airport security and onto the flight. 

The terms "flight ticket" and "e-ticket" are also often confused, but generally refer to the same thing today. Historically, airlines issued physical paper tickets, but these have been replaced entirely by digital versions called e-tickets. An e-ticket is essentially a digital confirmation sent via email or available in a travel app that provides proof of purchase and reservation.

Flight ticket contents typically include:

• Passenger’s full name and ID details.
• Airline name and flight number.
• Travel date, departure and arrival airports, and flight times.
• Fare details and pricing breakdown.
• Seating information (if booked at the moment of purchase).
• Booking reference (PNR) and electronic ticket number (ETKT).

Passengers use e-tickets primarily during booking, reimbursement processes, and for immigration or visa purposes before travel. Although travelers might print e-tickets for convenience, physical paper tickets have become almost obsolete.

Flight tickets confirm a passenger’s right to board a specific flight, provide accountability for the airline’s services, and can be used as proof of travel. An example of a flight ticket for illustrative purposes only

Why are flight tickets important?

Flight tickets are widely used as proof-of-travel for visa applications, expense reports, and insurance claims. Fake tickets are used to make fraudulent claims, bypass application processes and create faulty expense reports.

Here's how various industries rely on flight tickets for document verification:

• Insurance claims. Tickets serve as evidence in travel insurance claims, documenting disruptions, cancellations, or coverage eligibility.
• Immigration and border control. Flight tickets confirm entry and exit dates for visa or residency checks, affecting immigration status decisions.
• Expense and reimbursement verification. Businesses use tickets as proof-of-travel expenses.
• Employment and relocation verification. Employers validate travel and relocation claims using flight documents, reducing risk in reimbursement scenarios.

If you’d like to know how fraudsters are creating all these fake flight tickets, check out our “Types of fraud” blog to learn more about their tactics.

Threat intel: Template data about fake receipts

Our Threat Intelligence Unit collects data about template farms which make and distribute fake document templates for fraudulent purposes.

Below, you'll find an infographic containing data about all the fake flight ticket templates we've found: their availability, their distributors, and how much it costs to buy one.

Interesting note: Flight tickets are one of the cheapest document templates to purchase we've come across in our research.

Find more information about the threat these farms pose in our threat intel blog and webinar content.

5 Signs of a forged or fake flight ticket

Identifying fake flight tickets manually demands attention to detail and familiarity with airline-specific formatting. Fraudsters can replicate airline branding and layouts convincingly (or edit existing documents), making visual verification increasingly challenging. 

Here’s some easy-to-spot red flags in fake flight tickets:

1. Inconsistent formatting

Authentic airline documents follow rigid formatting rules. Deviations in structure or appearance can indicate tampering or forgery.

• Inconsistent barcode placement. Airlines standardize barcode positioning, variations can suggest manipulated images or false layouts.
• Mixed airline branding. A flight ticket showing legacy branding after an airline merger or rebrand.
• Irregular font usage. Airlines consistently use specific fonts (e.g., IATA-standardized OCR-B for automated scanning).
• Incorrect airport code formatting. Genuine e-tickets/flight tickets strictly use IATA three-letter codes (e.g., "JFK" not "NYC-JFK").
• Mismatched document design. Flight tickets from digital check-ins and printed at the check-in counter typically differ; blending features of both is suspicious.

2. Incorrect or misleading information

Forged flight tickets often contain inaccuracies due to lack of knowledge or careless mistakes.

• Invalid flight numbers. Flight numbers that don’t match the airline’s actual flight schedule (e.g., flight "AA1234" that doesn't exist).
• Mismatched destinations and airlines. Tickets showing routes not serviced by the indicated airline (e.g., Lufthansa operating domestic US flights).
• Impossible layover times. Connections with unrealistically short, impossible, or over extended layover times.
• Inconsistent time zone references. Departure and arrival times that incorrectly calculate flight duration and confuse local time zones.
• Suspicious ticket numbering. E-ticket numbers that do not match standard airline-issued number formats.

3. Bad math and uncharacteristic figures

Errors in financial or numerical information reveal document forgeries, especially when scammers misunderstand airline pricing logic.

• Unrealistic pricing. A transatlantic business class ticket listed at economy-class prices.
• Tax miscalculations. Tickets showing no taxes or incorrect international travel fees.
• Odd fare breakdowns. An e-ticket itemization listing fees that airlines don’t typically charge (e.g., "baggage handling surcharge" on a basic ticket that doesn’t include a checked bag).
• Seat assignments that don’t exist. Tickets or boarding passes listing seat numbers inconsistent with the aircraft’s actual seating layout.
• Baggage allowance inconsistencies. Ticket showing baggage allowances not matching the airline’s actual policy for the fare class.

4. Flight ticket inconsistencies

Airlines carefully control ticket issuance, leaving clear formatting fingerprints that fraudsters fail to replicate.

• Improper airline alliance logos. Use of Star Alliance logos on a non-member airline’s ticket.
• Incorrect departure gate information. Departure gates listed on passes for airports that don’t match standard numbering or naming conventions.
• Absence of security disclaimers. Authentic airline tickets often include security warnings or airline conditions of carriage.

5. Metadata discrepancies

Digital versions of flight documents often contain hidden clues of forgery in their file metadata.

• Editing software in metadata. PDF tickets showing metadata created with Photoshop or graphic design tools rather than airline reservation software.
• Creation date after travel date. Digital files timestamped as created or edited after the scheduled flight departure date.
• File origin mismatches. Airline-issued documents typically have official domains or origin metadata, not personal email addresses or free PDF editors.
• Altered metadata languages. Boarding passes for domestic US flights with file metadata language set to a non-English language.
• Embedded image layers in PDF tickets. Real airline-issued PDF tickets are text-based; image-based files suggest screen captures or edits.

Disclaimer: Manual checks alone won’t stop today’s AI-powered forgeries. Scalable, AI-driven verification solutions are now essential, flagging anomalies hidden in document structures and metadata that human eyes simply miss.

How to verify flight tickets and boarding passes

Insurance underwriters, border control agents, and fraud investigators can verify flight tickets manually or use AI-powered automation.

Manual verification is increasingly inadequate because fraud has gotten incredibly easy and accessible in 2025. Replicable templates are only a download away and Gen AI image generation can produce near-perfect results. Precision beyond human detection is only a click away and even the most seasoned risk teams can’t deal with the sheer volume of average Joe fraud attacks. 

AI-powered automation, by contrast, is faster, more scalable, and able to identify subtle anomalies and digital manipulations that manual reviewers often miss.

Still, many roles continue to rely heavily on manual verification due to existing workflows or regulatory constraints. While we recommend upgrading your verification process, if you’re still conducting manual reviews, keep these tips in mind:

Manual verification of flight tickets and boarding passes

Cross-checking your documents against the clear signs of flight document fraud mentioned above is a good place to start. To verify authenticity further:

• Verify with airlines directly. Use the official airline or travel agency website to confirm booking reference (PNR), passenger details, and flight numbers.
• Compare multiple documents. Review multiple e-ticket confirmations from the same journey for consistency in details like seat numbers and flight timings.
• Consult official schedules. Confirm flight numbers, departure gates, and timings against publicly available airline schedules or airport websites.
• Confirm fare breakdowns. Cross-reference pricing, fees, and taxes listed on tickets with the airline’s publicly published fare policies and fee structures.
• Government and regulatory bodies. Businesses (like travel insurance companies) cannot directly access official government flight directories and security systems. However, in severe cases where they suspect fraud they can contact government bodies (like the police) who will then use these interconnected systems to verify travel documents:
  
  
  • Global distribution systems (GDS): These are the backbone of the travel industry. When a ticket is purchased from an airline or a travel agency, the booking is created and stored in a GDS. Airlines access this system to confirm your booking when you check-in. The main GDS platforms include:
    • Amadeus
    • Sabre
    • Travelport
  • Government immigration and security systems: These systems require airlines to register data and can be used to cross reference tickets.
    • Advance Passenger Information System (APIS): Before an international flight departs, airlines are legally required to transmit passenger manifest information (including passport details and flight information from the ticket) to the border control authorities of the destination country. 
    • IATA TIMATIC (Travel Information Manual Automatic): While not a ticket verification system, TIMATIC is an official database used by airlines and travel agents to verify passenger travel document requirements (like visas and passport validity). 

Keep in mind: While manual verification helps catch obvious discrepancies, it can’t efficiently detect sophisticated forgeries or modern fraud tactics. Cross checking or verifying every ticket by hand would take too long and wouldn’t be scalable for growing businesses. With the best verification systems limited to airlines and law enforcement, the extent of the verification is also limited.

Using AI and machine learning to spot fake flight tickets and boarding passes

AI significantly enhances flight document verification by analyzing subtle indicators invisible to human reviewers. Rather than reading document content, AI focuses on structural and digital patterns that expose forgery.

Benefits of AI in spotting flight document scams:

• Layout and template verification. AI validates documents against known airline formats, identifying mismatches at pixel-level accuracy.
• Anomaly detection. Advanced AI models automatically scan embedded document characteristics and submission behaviors, uncovering tampering or suspicious acts.
• Cross-document context. AI compares submitted documents with verified samples, recognizing reused or altered templates across different passenger submissions.
• Generative AI detection. Specialized AI models identify subtle patterns of generative AI creation, including irregularities in visual texture or structural consistency of documents.
• Adaptive continuous learning. AI continuously updates itself against new fraud techniques, learning from millions of authentic documents processed in real time.
  
  

Automation vs. AI

Automation works well for repetitive rule-based checks. For example, confirming that a boarding pass barcode is present or that a ticket number field is filled. But it breaks down when facing complex, context-sensitive fraud.

It follows hard-coded rules such as “seat number must be numeric” or “airline logo must appear in the upper-right corner.” While effective for surface-level checks, automation fails when fraudsters accurately replicate airline layouts while subtly manipulating passenger details or flight information.

Machine learning models, on the other hand, understand the full structure and context of a document. They detect when a boarding pass timestamp doesn’t match real airline schedules, or when a ticket number deviates slightly from established airline numbering patterns. AI checks fields AND reasons across them, combining visual, textual, and digital metadata cues.

Conclusion

Fake flight tickets can lead to costly chargebacks, insurance fraud, and onboarding the wrong customers, partners, or employees. For businesses that rely on verifying travel documents (such as insurers, travel agencies, and event organizers) even small numbers of convincing fakes can disrupt operations and create financial losses.

Resistant AI helps prevent this by using advanced AI-driven document analysis to detect hidden anomalies in layout, structure, and metadata that human review or simple template matching can miss. This means faster, more accurate verification, fewer manual checks, and protection against increasingly well-made fraudulent tickets.

Want to see how it works in practice? Scroll down to book a demo.

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

Hungry for more fake flight ticket content? Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about fake flight tickets and fake boarding passes from around the web. 

How to spot fake flight tickets with AI?

Resistant AI uses advanced machine learning models to detect fake flight tickets. By analyzing structural layouts, visual patterns, and subtle digital anomalies invisible to the human eye, Resistant AI flags suspicious documents instantly. Trained on millions of authentic travel documents, our system identifies forged timestamps, mismatched itinerary details, altered metadata, and signs of generative AI manipulation—stopping fraud before it impacts your business.

What’s the difference between a flight ticket, boarding pass, and e-ticket confirmation?

Flight tickets, boarding passes, and e-ticket confirmations are distinct documents used at different stages of travel verification. While flight tickets and e-tickets are basically the same thing in 2025, boarding passes are used at a different stage of this journey:

Flight ticket (e-ticket): Proof of reservation and payment confirming a traveler’s right to board a specific flight.

• Issued by: Airline or travel agency after purchase.
• Characteristics:
  
  
  • Includes passenger identity, itinerary, fare details.

• • Primarily used during booking, immigration checks, and reimbursements.

• • Typically digital (PDF/email).
    
    

Boarding pass: Authorization to enter security checkpoints and board the aircraft.

• Issued by: Airline after check-in.
• Characteristics:
  
  
  • Contains seat number, gate info, and scannable barcode.

• • Used at airport security and boarding gates.

• • Digital or printed format.

Who needs to check for fake flight tickets and boarding passes?

These five roles are particularly vulnerable to flight ticket fraud:

• Insurance underwriters: Verifying travel-related claims to identify falsified itineraries or tickets submitted for fraudulent reimbursements.
• Border control agents: Verifying travelers’ documentation to ensure legitimate travel history.
• Fraud investigators: Identifying forged travel documentation in claims or financial disputes.
• Corporate expense auditors: Validating employee travel claims and reimbursements.
• Security personnel: Confirming identities and travel details for sensitive or restricted areas.

Is making or using a fake flight ticket illegal?

Yes. Creating, altering, or using forged flight tickets or boarding passes is illegal in virtually every jurisdiction. Penalties include fines, imprisonment, travel bans, or severe immigration consequences depending on the country and severity of the offense.

How do scammers use fake flight tickets and boarding passes in fraud?

Fake flight documents are commonly exploited for:

• Expense fraud. Claiming reimbursements for travel never undertaken.
• Immigration deception. Fabricating travel history for visa or residency approvals.
• Insurance fraud. Submitting false documents to claim travel insurance payouts.
• Identity theft. Establishing fraudulent travel records to support stolen or synthetic identities.

Can fake flight tickets bypass airport security?

While highly sophisticated fakes may initially deceive visual checks, legitimate airport security protocols, such as barcode scanning at checkpoints, significantly reduce the effectiveness of forged boarding passes. Flight logs make them close to impossible to use for illegitimate travel.

Instead, fraudsters typically use fakes for financial or identity fraud outside airport security contexts.