When we board a plane through the front door there is a detail that rarely goes unnoticed. The name of the plane is written just below the side window of the crew cabin. As a general rule, airlines name their aircraft with place names or the names of historical figures, although there are also exceptions.
There is no doubt that naming two planes after Thomas R. Stuker, as United Airlines has done with two of its aircraft, responds to one of these unusual decisions. Tom Stuker, a 69-year-old resident of New Jersey (United States), is an automobile dealership consultant. A normal and ordinary man who, for now, will not go down in history for being a celebrity, but for having become one of the most frequent passengers of the North American company.
Stuker has flown more than 24 million miles, about 38.6 million kilometers, which is equivalent to going around the world 965 times, according to what he told a few months ago in the Washington Post. Each year he spends between 200 and 250 days in the air and has visited more than 100 countries. In 2019 alone, it took 373 flights in 365 days and totaled 2.4 million kilometers in the air, 60 times the circumference of the Earth or six times the distance between the Earth and the moon. Real record figures.
If this service record were used to create a composite portrait of Stuker, the detailed description would reveal a typical businessman, marked by constant stress. A frequent traveler in search of business opportunities and business agreements around the world. Nothing is further from reality. Stuker lives “like a sultan” and has made his travels through the air a way of life.
In 1990, Stuker acquired a bonus to fly with United Airways for life. He paid $290,000 for it, equivalent today to $660,000 (about 613,000 euros) and considers it “the best investment” he has ever made. And he is right, because in addition to not having spent a single dollar more since then, living practically in the heights has become a business for him.
The lifetime bonus that he acquired more than three decades ago entitles Stuker to accumulate frequent flyer miles. With them he has been able to make additional reservations and live with his wife on more than 120 honeymoons, always staying in the most exclusive hotels in the places where they have traveled. The advantage of United Airways miles is that they are tradable, meaning they can be sold, redeemed, or auctioned for additional profit.
To carry out his own business, that is, to accumulate miles for his own financial benefit, Stuker has done some truly crazy things. He does not feel ashamed when explaining that he once spent 12 days in a row on a plane to fly from Newark (in his state), to San Francisco, Bangkok and Dubai, and then undo the same itinerary, to accumulate miles. In total, he spent 12 days without sleeping in a bed to travel a distance equivalent to four times around the world.
Stuker admits that with the sale of the tickets he obtains as a reward he has managed to add up large amounts of money, which in total have surely exceeded the amount he invested in purchasing the lifetime bonus, so it will have been free. On one occasion, he redeemed his miles for Walmart hypermarket gift cards worth $50,000 that were used to pay for his brother’s home renovations.
Stuker says that when he calls United Airways to make a reservation, a voice immediately answers: “Is that you, Mr. Stucker?” This is undoubtedly one of the friendliest sides of his long relationship with the company. On the other hand, he has also experienced bitter moments in the air since he has seen four travelers die. The last one, he was sitting in the seat next to him – he always chooses 1B – when he had a heart attack in the middle of the flight from Chicago to Tokyo. “They covered him with a blanket and fastened his seat belt. What else could they do for him?”