2 Delta attendants fail breathalyzer test before international flight
Two flight attendants for Delta Air Lines were pulled from an international flight after failing a breathalyzer test in Amsterdam on Friday.
Randomly tested by Dutch authorities before a flight to New York's JFK International Airport, a female flight attendant reportedly showed a blood alcohol level seven times over the legal limit for crew members and a male flight attendant failed by 0.02, an official familiar with the situation confirmed.
The female Delta employee was fined 1,900 euros, or about $2,000, and her male colleague was fined €275, or about $290. Another flight attendant from a different airline was also fined €1,800 (around $1,900) for being 6.5 times over the limit with the trio flagged during a three-hour period in which police screened 445 pilots and flight attendants at Schiphol Airport, according to Aviation A2Z.
A spokesperson for the Atlanta-based carrier told CBS News that the incident did not affect the flight.
"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," the spokesperson said.
Dutch police said in a statement that a third flight attendant with another, unspecified foreign airline also tested well over the legal limit for commercial flight crews on the same day at Schiphol and was fined about $1,900.
European aviation regulations restrict alcohol consumption for aircrew, and the Netherlands specifically bans pilots and crew members from drinking within 10 hours of a flight. The European Air Safety Agency warns that merely adhering to the "bottle to throttle" time rule does not guarantee compliance with legal blood alcohol concentration limits.
In the U.S., the Federal Aviation Administration recommends eight hours between drinking and flying and that employees be removed from their duties if their blood alcohol concentration registers 0.02 or above on a required test.
