In a period covering just 21 months, a senior flight attendant for the Asian low-cost carrier Scoot stole more than US$31,000 from onboard sales of food and drinks, a court in Singapore has heard.
31-year-old Luqman Hakim Shahfawi will be sentenced at a later date after pleading guilty to one count of criminal breach of trust, an offense which carries a maximum penalty of up to seven years imprisonment in Singapore’s notorious Changi Prison Complex.
The court heard how Luqman, as the senior flight attendant, was responsible for collecting all the money from onboard sales from other crew members and then securing it in cash deposit bags.
After the flight, Luqman was then supposed to bank the deposit bags at Scoot’s headquarters in Singapore.
After one flight in early 2023, Luqman accidentally lost two of these deposit bags. Fearing he would be terminated, Luqman kept quiet and didn’t tell his bosses of the mistake.
Months went by, and no one from Scoot contacted Luqman to ask what had happened to the money. Realizing that the airline was seemingly unaware whether cash was being correctly banked or not, Luqman started to regularly pocket the cash from onboard sales for himself.
Between July 2023 and March 2025, Luqman allegedly pocketed the cash from onboard sales on a staggering 366 occasions.
It appears that Luqman’s actions were due to the huge debts he had racked up with unlicensed money lenders. It remains unclear how Luqman was eventually caught, but in March 2025, he made a full confession to bosses who alerted the police.
He was arrested the following day.
Matt’s take
Surprisingly, despite this incident, Scoot still accepts cash as a form of payment on board its flights, putting it at odds with many other major airlines that only allow passengers to pay for on-board purchases with credit and debit cards.
While massive in scale, Luqman’s story of being caught is very similar to other light-fingered flight attendants. At first, their thieving is not noticed by the airline and, over time, they become more and more prolific.
In the background, however, the airline’s security team has realized that something is amiss and starts to quietly build evidence. They work out which flights, stock, or cash is going missing and begin to narrow down potential suspects.
This process can take some time, but they’ll eventually identify their prime suspect. From there, it’s fairly easy to create a situation in which the suspect will be caught red-handed.
