Stowaway Passenger Svetlana Dali Gets Time Served, Faces Connecticut Extradition

A federal judge in Brooklyn on Thursday sentenced Svetlana Dali, the woman who slipped aboard a Delta Air Lines flight from New York to Paris without a ticket or passport last year, to time served—about seven months already spent in custody—and one year of supervised release. Judge Ann Donnelly said the punishment balanced Dali’s difficult circumstances with the need for deterrence, noting, “When someone gets onto a plane without a seat, without a ticket, it’s a danger.” Dali, 57, a Russian citizen and U.S. permanent resident who had been living in Philadelphia, was convicted in May of a federal stowaway charge for boarding overnight Delta Flight 264 at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Nov. 26, 2024. Prosecutors said she bypassed multiple security checkpoints, hid in a lavatory for hours and used false names when questioned by crew members before the jet landed at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport. Although the sentence exhausts her federal penalty, Dali remains in custody because Connecticut authorities have requested her extradition over an earlier breach of security at Bradley International Airport near Hartford. State prosecutors there say she faces felony charges that could carry up to five years in prison.