A DAD dubbed the "Fraud of the Skies" stole £25,000 worth of duty free goods on hundreds of flights after exploiting a payment loophole.

Keith James, 63, looted luxury perfumes, designer sunglasses, alcohol, cigarettes and other high-end items during his three-year scheme.

The cunning passenger took advantage of the fact in-air transactions could only be processed after planes landed.

James would let loose on the duty free trolley on board while using a string of bank cards that had no credit facilities.

The father-of-six, who believed he was terminally ill with bladder cancer,would then scarper before cabin crew downloaded passenger purchases, a court heard.

Swindled airline staff would then find his transactions had been rejected due to "insufficient funds".

After catching onto his scam, Jet2 tried to ban the light-fingered flyer from their airline – but James managed to overcome it by using his middle name on boarding passes.

The 62-year-old, from Wythenshawe, Greater Manchester, ignored repeated legal letters demanding payment.

The brazen dad even continued to fly with the same operators who had realised he was cheating them out of cash between May 2016 and April 2019.

James was eventually nicked at Manchester Airport after returning on a flight from Spain after visiting his wife who lives abroad.

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Despite admitting he had "been an idiot", the pilfering passenger claimed he wanted to "get one over" on banks who were "keeping customers in debt".

Due to him dividing his time between the UK and a property in Tenerife where his wife lives, James noticed the loophole and bled it dry.

The dad said he had gifted all of the stolen swag – totaling up to £25,556.40 – to his family after being told he was dying.

He said in a statement: "I've been an idiot haven't I.

"But the diagnosis has taken its toll on me mentally and physically and I felt the radiotherapy and chemo had done me in and made me a bit bitter and twisted.

''I was genuinely giving things away as it made people happy. Giving away a bottle of nice perfume was making me happy.

"I didn't know how long I had left and I liked doing this. I realise it was wrong I shouldn't be doing it.

I was treating each day as my last and didn't think of the consequences – I regret it now and haven't done it since.

"But at the time I was treating each day as my last and didn't think of the consequences – I regret it now and haven't done it since."

He stung Jet2 out of £12,459.50 during his three-year fiddle, while the now-defunct Thomas Cook lost £13,100.19, according to the MEN.

The budget airline had banned him from their flights while the latter told him not to use his cards on board.

James, who is still undergoing twice-yearly treatment for his illness, admitted eight charges of fraud by false representation and was given 12 months jail suspended for two years.

He was also ordered to complete 150 hours unpaid work and was ordered to wear an electronic tag for six months as part of a 7pm-7am curfew.

Brett Wilson, prosecuting, said James would travel regularly to destinations in Europe and use a credit card with insufficient funds.

He added: "Whilst in mid-flight the terminal cannot connect to the bank for obvious reasons and it is only when the aircraft arrives at its destinations the crew plug in the payment machines and the bank does the transaction."

James' ruse began to crumble when an investigator for Thomas Cook,discovered he had made 112 transactions in 2016 and nine in 2018.

"DELIBERATE" DECEIT

She even confronted the thieving traveller on a flight bound for Lanzarote and warned him not to try his tricks.

Mr Wilson continued: "On some occasions, he travelled out of the UK and then back again in a matter of hours.

"There was some planning and connivance behind this offending in working out that it would be very difficult for the airline to catch him.

"He's deliberately targeted these airlines. These are not victimless crimes.

"People may think a big airline can simply absorb their losses but there's an impact on all of us – raising airfares, airlines employ people locally they buy products and services and pay their taxes and shareholders."

In mitigation, defence counsel Andy Evans said: "His journeys were not deliberately set up to do this.

"He discovered this fraud by chance when he used a card with insufficient funds when on a flight- he should have ended it there but he didn't.

''His targets were the credit card companies not the airlines. He viewed them as organisations with deep pockets who kept normal citizens in debt and he thought this was something he could do to give him pleasure and get one up on a larger system.

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"It was one or two luxury items at a time then he would gift them to friends and family to lighten the mood of his diagnosis.

"This was not him attempting huge financial gain. It was something which presented an opportunity for him to bring some joy to his family in a bleak time in his life."

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