Alaska Airlines is facing a rare $165,000 fine for allowing intoxicated passengers on board its flights, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced on Tuesday.
In a very brief statement, the FAA said that it was proposing the civil penalty based on incidents that occurred on 11 flights between February 2024 and February 2025.
Under FAA regulation 14 CFR § 121.575(c), airlines are prohibited from allowing “any person to board any of its aircraft if that person appears to be intoxicated.” The FAA has the power to fine airlines that don’t enforce this rule, although regulatory action is rare.
The FAA first alerted Alaska Airlines to its concerns around one year ago, and, since then, the Seattle-based carrier says it has made “meaningful changes” to its policies to ensure compliance.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Alaska Airlines said: “We participated fully with the FAA’s audit of our policies and practices as it relates to intoxicated guests on board our aircraft.”
“Since the FAA shared these concerns with us over a year ago, we made meaningful changes to ensure compliance with the FAA’s expectations — including enhanced training for all flight attendants and customer service agents.”
The airline added: “We respect the results of the FAA’s audit and are confident in the changes that have been in place for the last year to ensure our shared standards are being met.”
Alaska Airlines has 30 days to respond to the FAA enforcement letter, although it certainly sounds like the carrier will accept the fine in a bid to move on from this embarrassing audit finding.
The FAA did not provide any further details on the 11 incidents that it investigated as part of its audit, although it could include an episode in November 2024 involving a 38-year-old woman who lives in a remote Alaskan community where alcohol is banned.
Caryn Evan first traveled from the remote Alaskan village of Chefornak in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta to Bethel Airport, where she took advantage of the city’s more lax alcohol rules and consumed two or three drinks before boarding the flight.
An off-duty police officer noticed Evan in Bethel Airport because she seemed “very intoxicated” and aggressive, and kept bumping into people.
Despite her behavior, however, Evan was allowed to board the flight, and once in the air, she had one or two more alcoholic drinks during the approximately one-hour flight.
On the approach to Anchorage, however, Evan became violent towards her husband and ended up being arrested after the plane landed.
One of the issues that Alaska Airlines faces is that it serves so many communities in its namesake State that alcohol is strictly regulated. As a result, the airline frequently has issues with passengers consuming a lot of alcohol at the airport before heading back to Alaska because it will be their final opportunity for some time.
While the FAA rules are primarily focused on intoxication by alcohol, Alaska Airlines has also faced more than its fair share of unruly passenger incidents as a result of drug abuse.
One particularly extreme incident occurred in December 2025 when Kassian William Fredericks suffered a suspected drug overdose and started to hallucinate. Fredericks became so disoriented that he attempted to open one of the emergency exits mid-flight and had to be restrained.
