Flying ban of 5 years at KLM and Transavia for disruptive behavior on board

By extending a flight ban at Transavia to KLM and vice versa, the scope of the measures taken is increased. A passenger who flies with a KLM or Transavia ticket and is placed on the 'No Fly List' has less chance of endangering flight safety again with the other airline. This should contribute to increasing flight safety. In addition, these measures have a preventive effect.

Paul Terstegge, Executive Vice President Inflight Services KLM: “It is urgently necessary to take this measure. Safety on board has the highest priority. The consequences of passengers who misbehave are serious; this has a major impact on our passengers and our own employees. Any form of physical violence towards our crew or fellow passengers is unacceptable. In addition, it causes delays, which is very annoying for passengers and means high costs for airlines.”

Sharing threatening images with digital applications such as Airdrop is also not accepted. Daan Pijzel, head of cabin service at Transavia: “We stand for our people and also for our passengers and safety on board always comes first. If there are people on board who exhibit unacceptable behavior, a very threatening situation will arise in such a small space. Whether it concerns physical violence or sharing threatening images via Airdrop, for example. We see this happening more often, recently on a flight to Croatia. What may be intended as a 'joke' causes great unrest among passengers, including children. And this behavior is also unacceptable for our own crew. Not being able to fly for five years with both Transavia and KLM is a strong signal and does justice to the unsafe situation such a passenger causes.”

Growing reports of unacceptable behavior

Unacceptable behavior on board is a growing problem. During corona times, the number of reports of this behavior on board increased. At KLM there are an average of 5 reports per month of unacceptable behavior resulting in passengers being banned from flying, at Transavia this is on average once a month. Although the number of reports decreased after corona, airlines are now seeing an increase again. This behavior at high altitudes has a major impact on both passengers and crew on board the aircraft.

Complex regulations

KLM and Transavia had to intensively investigate how to properly share the blacklists with each other. This process took a long time because the airlines, even though they are part of the same group, encountered complex and sometimes unclear regulations. Nevertheless, both airlines have managed to coordinate policies and processes in such a way that it is possible to share this data, while taking into account all existing privacy regulations. These measures are now a first step towards sharing data from 'No Fly lists'. The challenge now is how this can be taken further in the Netherlands and perhaps also in Europe.

Call to politicians and authorities

Due to the increasing number of incidents and their severity and impact, Transavia and KLM advocate investigating whether airlines can share more data among themselves to promote flight safety. They therefore first and foremost call on politicians and authorities to create more (legal) opportunities for airlines so that they can exchange information about 'No Fly Lists', at least within national borders.

In the long term, we should work towards international regulations and harmonization. After all, problems related to unacceptable passenger behavior transcend airlines and national borders and are of great importance for further improving aviation safety. However, in many countries regulations are either absent or fragmented to such an extent that sharing information that could promote flight safety is not possible at all.