U.S. Fines Air France And KLM $425,000 For Flights Over Iraq—They Say Pilots Were Just Following Orders

Air France and KLM operated more than 130 Delta Air Lines codeshare flights through restricted airspace over Iraq. The airlines say their pilots were following air traffic control instructions. The U.S. Department of Transportation fined them because it kept happening for years, and they needed to either route around the expected issue or remove the Delta code from their flights. The fine is $425,000 But they only have to pay $265,000 if they don’t violate this again within a year. What’s striking is that all three foreign airlines in Delta’s transatlantic joint venture have now faced a similar enforcement action, since Virgin Atlantic was also fined $1 million for operating Delta codeshares through prohibited Iraqi airspace. Air France operated more than 30 flights between April 2022 and November 2025 that violated U.S. rules. And foreign airlines are subject to those rules when flights carry the code of a U.S. airline. KLM flew more than 100 flights between January 2022 and May 2025 covered by the order. The FAA restriction prohibited operations below 32,000 feet in the Baghdad Flight Information Region because of weapons held by Iranian-backed militias and the risk that civil aircraft could be misidentified or caught in military activity. Air France and KLM say planned to fly above the restricted altitude, but air traffic control ordered their pilots to descend or refused permission to climb due to conflicting traffic and that crews climbed to the permitted altitude as soon as they could. And the rule has an emergency exception, because a captain faced with an immediate safety problem might need to deviate! However DOT argues the repeated issue over years made this foreseeable airlines should have rerouted or removed Delta’s code after repeated incidents showed that a compliant flight plan wasn’t enough DOT isn’t penalizing pilots for obeying controllers, they’re penalizing the airlines for not adjusting their plans given the continued risk of violating what’s viewed as a rule for safety on a flight carrying a U.S. airline code. Emirates was also fined $400,000 in 2020 for JetBlue codeshares through restricted portions of the Tehran flight information region and another $1.8 million in 2024 over Iraq flights, including violating the earlier cease-and-desist order. Air Canada, Lufthansa and Swiss all settled cases over flights below the Iraq altitude restriction. Ethiopian settled one involving Somali airspace on flights to Djibouti. I have to wonder, though, if Delta’s joint venture partners are all violating U.S. law over safety restrictions why this shouldn’t call into question the joint venture. The penalties actually being applied are modest – $265,000 for more than 130 flights. It seems like the focus on U.S. codeshares should also call into question what oversight Delta is exercising, considering the issue was already knwon after Virgin Atlantic’s earlier case. And Delta owns 49% of Virgin! Topics on this page