I think people forget a lot of what life was like “way back when”.
Before 9-11 planes typically flew half to one-third empty except during holidays. Recall the 9-11 hijackers picked early morning flights that would be les than half full, in order to avoid something like Flight 93 where a lot of passengers might gang up on them, considering they only had utility knives.
Until the 80’s you could walk up to the gate to say goodbye to loved ones. The plot of Airplane (first of the series) in the early 70’s featured an old lady who conned her way onto flights “I was just on and came off and forgot my boarding pass on the seat” and that sort of thing. Apparently this was based on a real person or two. Sweet old ladies never lie, right?
I recall a short bit in Readers Digest where some guy whose wife was a stewardess would often, if his wife was off working, babysit the young kids by taking them on a flight using the wife’s employee family pass. Unlimited free flights in those days (but first to be bumped) he’d take a short flight (IIRC Chicago to Minneapolis or something) and then home again, a fun time and the kids would get their dinner served on the plane - real food. Times have changed.
Abagnale found that if he dressed the part, nobody questioned him. There was no security, no manadatory employee ID’s; pilots let other pilots “deadhead” to go home or to get to their next assignment, no matter which airline they worked for, as a matter of courtesy. The fancier security only came in the 80’s and 90’s when hijacking in Europe by terrorists after the Munich Olympics became a threat in North America too. Before that, it was the occasional harmless nut (or DB Cooper) who just waved around a pistol and just wanted to go to Cuba. Someone showing up dressed and acting the part was probably 90% of any con job before IDs were required. Also if you recall the movie, he found out where the pilot uniforms came from, and talked his way through getting a uniform even though his “requisition had been lost”.
One trick shown is where he used airline logo decals from model planes to make the fake cheques look amazingly real. In the days before personal colour printers, anything that “looked professional” was convincing. Even drivers licenses and birth certificates were typically typewriter or computer line printer on preprinted forms. But in the days when credit cards were rare and most business was done by cash or cheque, assorted cheque scams were a common occurrence. Whether he did as much as he claims -well, we have his word on that for what it’s worth.
I recall one crime I read about, where someone just bought a computer dot matrix printer in the earliest days, some preprinted invoice forms, and sent fake invoices to a number of small county and city government offices. People would see a computer printout and not question that it might be fake, because they did not realize this tech was easily available; the problem was that the procedures for verifying invoice payments was far too lax.
I also recall an article about some Nova Scotia town many decades ago upset at losing its doctor - because apparently, he was not a real doctor. He covered it up by ordering unnecessary tests; most complaints were simply fixed by prescribing drugs, but writing prescriptions without a licnse was the crime that finally got him caught.
Another item from way back when was the fellow who always wanted to be a doctor (much like some people always wanted to be policemen). One day he put on a lab coat, wandered into a hospital, and decided to play doctor. Apparently with one patient, he decided to take a blood sample - which of course, he’d only seen when he’d had it done to himself. After he stuck the lady in the arm about 10 times without result, she got very vocal and he was found out and arrested. That’s the sort of problem that resulted in all hospital staff needing to display ID.
I don’t know whether European countries have statutes of limitations, but if they did, then I would assume by the time he’d served his sentence in America he’d be outside the limit elsewhere.
