Delta Airlines flight attendants were pulled from a flight to New York City after failing a random breathalyzer test, with two found over the legal limit.
On Friday, breathalyzer tests were given to 445 airline employees at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.
The routine tests, however, became crucial after two Delta flight attendants were found over the Netherland’s legal limit of 0.02 before a flight scheduled to depart at 10.45am to John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.
One of the attendants blew 0.143, which is seven times the legal limit for flight crews and nearly double the legal limit allowed for drivers in the US.
The attendant was fined $1,998, while the other employee, who had a blood alcohol content of 0.024, was fined $305.
A Delta Airlines spokesperson told CBS News: ‘Delta’s alcohol policy is among the strictest in the industry and we have zero tolerance for violation.
‘The employees were removed from their scheduled duties and the flight departed as scheduled.’
A third flight attendant with another unknown airline blew over the legal limit at 0.13 and was fined $1,892, according to the local police incident report.
Two Delta flight attendants were found over the Netherland’s legal limit of 0.02 before a flight scheduled to depart at 10.45am to John F. Kennedy Airport in New York
On Friday, breathalyzer tests were given to 445 airline employees at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. One of the Delta flight attendants blew nearly seven times over the legal US driving limit at 0.143
The Federal Aviation Administration in the United States recommends that flight crew leave eight hours between drinking and flying. The Netherlands prohibits flight crew from drinking within ten hours of a flight.
The European Air Safety Agency warns that simply adhering to the ‘bottle to throttle’ time rule does not guarantee compliance with legal blood alcohol concentration limits.
As incidents on flights, including crew, passengers and overall safety, have been increasing placing more importance than ever on flight attendants being clear-headed and refrain from alcohol usage before reporting for work per the FAA guidelines.
A Delta flight from New York to France recently saw a passenger sneak onto the flight, bypassing security checkpoints with no travel documents.
The woman was revealed by French officials as a Russian national who is a legal US resident, but pleaded flight crew not to ‘send her back to America’.
Allegedly identified as Svetlana Dali, the woman was filmed on board the flight screaming at staff trying to question her.
‘Please help me!’ she was seen saying in the video. ‘I don’t want to go to the United States.’
Officials said she was detained in France and was placed back on a flight to the US days later, but new footage then also showed her being combative with airline staff, screaming about needing ‘asylum against the United States.’
The woman who allegedly snuck onto a Delta Airlines flight from New York to France last week, named as Svetlana Dali, was seen in bombshell new footage begging flight attendants not to ‘send her back to America’
After Dali was detained in Paris, officials attempted to deport her back to JFK – with separate footage showing the stowaway screaming about needing ‘asylum against the United States’
Delta and TSA said it they have launched an investigation to find out how Dali allegedly snuck past security checkpoints.
‘Nothing is of greater importance than matters of safety and security. That’s why Delta is conducting an exhaustive investigation of what may have occurred and will work collaboratively with other aviation stakeholders and law enforcement to that end,’ Delta said in a statement.
Footage of Dali being unruly with airline staff when French authorities tried to deport her back was taken before the jet ever got off the ground, and passengers said she began freaking out almost instantly.
Passenger Natalia Treichler said: ‘She got belligerent, and so more stewardesses came in to try and restrain her.
‘That’s when everything started to escalate.’
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk