Faced with an alarming rise in the number of unruly passenger incidents, lawmakers in France have decided to take urgent action by introducing new rules that allow the country’s civil aviation regulator to fine disruptive passengers up to €20,000 and place them on a no-fly list for four years.
The sanctions are in addition to criminal penalties that can be imposed by the police and courts, meaning that antisocial passengers could be hit by double fines for offenses like refusing to comply with crew member instructions.
The new powers are contained within Decree No. 2025-1063, which was published in the government’s official journal on November 7. It gives the French Civil Aviation Authority the ability to impose civil penalties the power to fine passengers for several offenses:
- Using electronic gadgets during phases of flight that use if prohibited or when instructed by the crew.
- Refusing the comply with lawful safety instructions from the crew.
- Obstructing the ability of crew to perform their jobs.
Officials will have the power to fine first-time offenders up to €10,000 ($11,560), but repeat offenders could be hit with fines of €20,000 ($23,120).
In exceptional cases, officials will also be able to impose flight bans of up to four years.
To manage the new powers, the civil aviation regulator will set up a new database of unruly passengers, with airlines able to report offenders directly to regulators without first involving the police.
It should be noted, and missed by many publications, is the fact that these powers only apply to disruptive power that takes place on a French-registered airplane. In other words, if a passenger misbehaves on a foreign airline heading to or from France, officials won’t have the power to impose these administrative fines or place the perpetrator on the no-fly list.
That being said, the police and courts will still be able to hand down criminal sentences to anyone found guilty of unruly behavior.
The decree brings similar powers to French aviation regulators that the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has had for many years.
The FAA had not, however, really used these powers much, although that all changed in 2021 when the United States witnessed a worrying spike in unruly passenger behavior.
In an attempt to get a grip on the situation, the FAA launched a zero-tolerance approach to unruly passenger behavior, issuing a record number of civil penalties even when criminal charges were being pursued.
The approach had a big impact: In 2021, unruly passenger incidents reported to the FAA spiked at nearly 6,000. So far this year, that number has dropped to less than 1,500 and is on track to be the lowest number of unruly passenger incidents reported to the agency in the past five years.
It’s about damned time that the United States DOT does the same thing!