An American safety rule does not normally apply to a French or Dutch airline. Put a Delta flight number on the ticket, though, and it does. That is the lesson Air France and KLM have just paid $425,000 to learn, after the US Department of Transportation found that more than 130 of their flights carrying Delta's code crossed Iraqi airspace lower than US rules allow.
The penalties were announced by the DOT on 23 October 2026 in two consent orders, and Dutch and French media have been digesting them since. They are a neat illustration of how far US aviation regulation reaches through the codeshare agreements that most travellers never think about.
Quick Facts
- Total fine: $425,000 ($265,000 payable now, $160,000 suspended)
- KLM: $320,000 ($120,000 suspended), more than 100 flights, January 2022 to May 2025
- Air France: $105,000 ($40,000 suspended), more than 30 flights, April 2022 to November 2025
- Codeshare partner: Delta Air Lines (DL code)
- Rule broken: SFAR 77, 14 CFR 91.1605: no US operations below FL320 in the Baghdad FIR
- Rule valid until: 26 October 2027
- Announced: 23 October 2026, US Department of Transportation
What the airlines did
According to the DOT, KLM operated more than 100 flights between January 2022 and May 2025, and Air France more than 30 between April 2022 and November 2025, that carried Delta's DL code through the Baghdad Flight Information Region below Flight Level 320, roughly 32,000 feet. KLM was fined $320,000 and Air France $105,000. KLM pays $200,000 and Air France $65,000 within 60 days; the rest is suspended and only becomes due if either repeats a covered violation within a year. Both were ordered to cease and desist.
How an FAA rule reaches a foreign airline
The rule in question is Special Federal Aviation Regulation 77, codified at 14 CFR 91.1605. It bars US airlines, US commercial operators and US-registered aircraft from flying below FL320 in the Baghdad FIR. The FAA first set the floor at FL260 when it reissued the rule in 2018, raised it to FL320 in October 2020 and, in October 2024, extended it until 26 October 2027.
The FAA's justification is a list of threats: Iranian-aligned militias with anti-aircraft weapons including shoulder-launched missiles, armed drones, cross-border strikes by Iran and Turkey, missiles and drones transiting Iraqi airspace towards Israel, and widespread GPS jamming.
On its own, SFAR 77 does not bind a foreign carrier. The link is the codeshare. As the FAA puts it in the Federal Register, DOT codeshare authorisations prohibit foreign air carriers from carrying a US codeshare partner's code on segments through the prohibited airspace. In other words, once a KLM or Air France flight is sold as a Delta flight, it has to follow the rules a Delta jet would.
ABC News (Australia) on who decides whether airliners can fly over war zones.
"Pilots were just following orders"
The airlines' defence, as reported by View from the Wing, aviationa2z and others, was that their crews planned to fly at or above FL320, but Iraqi air traffic control ordered descents or refused climbs because of conflicting traffic, and that complying was an emergency exception allowed by the rule. The DOT's answer, as reported, was that a compliant flight plan is not enough when the problem keeps recurring: carriers should reroute or remove the US partner's code.
Both airlines settled rather than fight. According to NL Times, KLM says it signed the settlement, that no passengers or crew were ever endangered and that it has strengthened its compliance procedures. In the Netherlands the story carries extra weight: 196 of the 298 people killed when Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine in 2014 were Dutch.
Not the first, probably not the last
Air France and KLM are in familiar company. Virgin Atlantic, another Delta partner, was fined about $1 million in 2023 for Delta-coded flights through prohibited Iraqi airspace. Emirates paid $400,000 in 2020 over JetBlue-coded flights in the Tehran FIR and $1.8 million in 2024 over Iraq flights, partly for breaching an earlier cease-and-desist order.
The pattern is clear. Every foreign airline that sells seats under a US partner's code is, for those flights, partly flying under US rules, and the DOT is checking the flight data.
The Dutch Safety Board on its recommendations for flying over conflict zones after MH17.
How airspace closures and restrictions work.
Sources: US Department of Transportation, FAA / Federal Register (SFAR 77), View from the Wing, aviationa2z, NL Times, Paddle Your Own Kanoo, aeroTELEGRAPH
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