A Delta Air Lines flight yesterday was canceled for a pretty concerning reason…
Delta pilot arrested at Stockholm Arlanda prior to flight
This incident happened on Tuesday, July 22, 2025, and involves Delta flight DL205 from Stockholm Arlanda (ARN) to New York (JFK). The flight was scheduled to be operated by a 26-year-old Boeing 767-300ER with the registration code N176DZ.
So, what happened? At around 9:15AM (65 minutes before scheduled departure time), police boarded the aircraft to conduct a breathalyzer test on the crew, as these are performed at random on crew members, in line with European Union regulations. However, one of the pilots failed the test — she was immediately removed from duty and arrested.
Obviously it’s highly irresponsible for a pilot to not follow limits when it comes to alcohol consumption. However, it’s worth clarifying that there’s a difference between a pilot failing a breathalyzer, and a pilot being drunk.
In this situation, regulations limit pilots to a blood alcohol level of 0.02, compared to the legal limit of 0.08 for driving. So even one drink in your system would be enough to be over the limit for operating an aircraft. The pilot’s blood alcohol level hasn’t been released, and all we know is that it exceeded the limit.
Given the number of crew members out there, failed breathalyzer tests aren’t unheard of. In mid-2023, a Delta flight from Edinburgh was similarly canceled after a pilot failed a breathalyzer. In late 2024, a Delta flight from Amsterdam was canceled after one of the flight attendants was randomly tested, and was found to have a blood alcohol level of 0.143. That’s not just a little over the limit, as that’s almost twice the legal limit for driving a car in the United States, and over seven times the legal limit for crew members.
These kinds of cancellations can get really expensive
With the Boeing 767 being down a pilot, of course the flight was canceled, which the airline describes as being “due to an operational issue.”
Since this flight was departing the European Union, that can quickly get very costly. Not only is there the domino effect of future flights being impacted, but this flight was subject to EC261 regulations. So passengers were entitled to a duty of care (hotels, meals, transportation, etc.), plus are entitled to €600 compensation, assuming they made it to their destination at least four hours behind schedule.
I imagine that most passengers didn’t make it to their destination within four hours, so they’d be entitled to that compensation, if they requested it. If you assume there were around 200 passengers, that comes out to €120,000 in compensation.
Of course that assumes everyone actually requests the compensation, which won’t be the case. Quite the contrary, I imagine only a small percentage of passengers are even aware of this policy, and will request it.
Bottom line
A transatlantic Delta Boeing 767 flight was canceled after one of the pilots failed a breathalyzer test. A random test was performed onboard the aircraft, and one of the pilots didn’t pass it, so she was removed from duty and arrested. We don’t know just how much over the limit she was, but either way, the rules are the rules.
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