Air France and KLM face a combined $425,000 in U.S. civil penalties over flights carrying Delta Air Lines’ code through restricted Iraqi airspace. The Department of Transportation announced the action on October 23, 2026. The cases concern flights between 2022 and 2025, rather than a newly reported incident or airport closure.
Air France and KLM fines: what DOT found
In its October 23 announcement, DOT said the flights breached restrictions in the Baghdad Flight Information Region. Its Office of Aviation Consumer Protection investigated both carriers.
| Airline | Flights cited by DOT | Period | Assessed penalty |
|---|---|---|---|
| Air France | More than 30 | April 2022–November 2025 | $105,000 |
| KLM | More than 100 | January 2022–May 2025 | $320,000 |
The Air France order summary and KLM order summary each direct the carrier to cease similar violations.
Why a Delta flight number matters
A codeshare lets one airline market a flight operated by another. DOT says foreign carriers displaying a U.S. airline’s code must observe the applicable FAA airspace prohibitions. This case concerns operations below Flight Level 320 in the Baghdad region; it is not a statement that every foreign-airline overflight of Iraq was prohibited.
What the airlines said—and DOT’s response
The full KLM consent order records the airline’s position: its flights were planned above FL320, but controllers ordered descents or withheld clearance to climb because of conflicting traffic. KLM argued that complying with those instructions qualified for the emergency exemption and said passengers and crew were not adversely affected.
DOT rejected that exemption argument. It said its action concerned the airline’s failure to take preventive measures after repeated descents, such as rerouting or removing Delta’s code—not pilots following controller instructions while airborne.
Reuters’ October 23 report by David Shepardson says Air France made the same controller-instruction and emergency-exemption argument. Reuters reported that neither airline immediately provided a fresh comment; their positions came from the submissions to DOT. Flyzeu has not conducted a new interview with either carrier.
Does the full $425,000 have to be paid now?
Reuters reports that $265,000 is due within 60 days, with the remaining $160,000 contingent on further violations within one year. The headline total is the assessed penalty, not the amount immediately payable.
What travelers should check
A marketing flight number and the operating airline can differ. Check both on your itinerary, and use your airline’s current flight-status and travel-advice pages for operational decisions. These historical enforcement cases do not establish that a specific flight today is cancelled, operating or following a particular route.
For separate current disruption coverage, see our Riyadh airport update. Its dated statements concern a different situation and should not be confused with these consent orders.
Sources checked October 26, 2026. The enforcement announcement and orders were issued October 23; this article does not present them as newly announced today.
Archive/context photograph: Air France Boeing 777-300ER F-GSQX departing Paris-Orly, August 15, 2018. Photo: Paul Schmid via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Resized and compressed; this image remains under the same licence. Not Iraq or an identified flight in the DOT cases.
