by Mia Taylor
Last updated: 2:55 PM ET, Tue August 11, 2026
High-tech travel scams are widespread these days. And now they’re making their way onboard flights.
Delta officials have revealed that an unidentified passenger created a fake Wi-Fi network on a flight traveling from Las Vegas to Atlanta on Monday.
The incident even prompted pilots on the flight to alert air traffic control of the incident, according to a report from TechCrunch and confirmation via airline and public broadcasts from the plane.
When the Delta crew became aware of the fake Wi-Fi network onboard, the plane’s pilots issued a series of two messages to air traffic control.
The messages made clear that a passenger had “created a scam Wi-Fi.” Pilots also indicated that the network was designed to impersonate the airplane’s legitimate wireless network.
In addition to alerting air traffic control, the flight crew turned off the aircraft’s own Wi-Fi network for around 30 minutes as a result of the fake Wi-Fi discovery.
The pilots also indicated that some passengers onboard the flight came from cybersecurity conferences held in Las Vegas last week.
It’s not clear what the passenger was intending to do with the fake Wi-Fi network. A Delta spokesperson told TechCrunch however, that the safety of the flight was never in question amid the incident. Moreover, the plane’s own in-flight network was not compromised.
“We are fully investigating to gather a complete set of facts, which will take time. We will partner with federal law enforcement and aviation regulators to ensure the incident is thoroughly investigated,” the spokesperson told TechCrunch.
Tom Kellermann, vice president of AI security and threat research for TrendAI told TravelPulse that evil twin attacks like the one the Delta flight experienced are easily able to trick consumers "because devices trust familiar network names."
"Attackers use cheap tools to knock passengers off real Wi-Fi, then stand up a lookalike hotspot that harvests logins on a fake page," Kellermann said.
To avoid falling victim to this type of scam Kellermann suggests travelers disable Wi-Fi auto-connect on their devices, avoid entering passwords on unverified networks, and use a multi-factor authentication process when logging on.
"Fake pages are becoming more convincing, so it's important to be able to spot phishing attempts before entering passwords," Kellermann said. "This also shows why the plane's flight controls need to be completely walled off from the passenger Wi-Fi and entertainment system; so a stunt like this stays a stolen password, not a safety issue.”
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