What American Passengers Need to Know About Airline No-Fly Lists — and Why the U.S. Lags Far Behind

U.S. airlines each maintain their own ban lists in isolation. A passenger kicked off a Delta flight can board American or United the next day. The United Kingdom is building a fix, and Washington has no answer.

American airlines each maintain their own no-fly lists for disruptive passengers, but no shared mechanism exists to block a banned traveler from booking a seat on a competitor — a gap the United Kingdom is now moving to close, nearly five years after Delta Air Lines first proposed a remedy that never materialized in the United States.

The U.K.’s Department for Transport and the Home Office are jointly developing a shared disruptive-passenger database, with an in-depth industry meeting scheduled for June 2026 to advance the proposal. If adopted, the system would allow British airlines to notify one another about banned travelers, effectively barring a disruptive passenger from all U.K. carriers — not just the one that issued the original ban. U.S. officials, meanwhile, have signaled that similar action on this side of the Atlantic is not imminent.

The stakes are concrete. The Federal Aviation Administration has reported 687 unruly passenger incidents year-to-date in 2026 — with 56 investigations initiated, 33 enforcement actions, and $700,000 in fines levied. The 2025 annual total was 1,621 incidents. Both figures sit well below the record 5,973 cases logged in 2021, but incidents continue to cause flight diversions, crew injuries, and travel disruptions for thousands of other passengers each year.

How the U.S. No-Fly System Actually Works

Two distinct types of no-fly lists operate in the United States, and they serve entirely separate purposes.

The first is the federal No Fly List, administered by the Transportation Security Administration as part of the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database. It bars individuals who may pose a threat to civil aviation or national security from boarding commercial aircraft. It has no connection to disruptive or unruly passenger behavior.

The second is each airline’s internal ban list. Delta, American, United, Southwest, and other major U.S. carriers each maintain their own roster of passengers barred for policy violations — physical assault of crew, verbal abuse, non-compliance with safety instructions, or chronic disruptive behavior. These lists are private. They are not shared. No law or regulation requires them to be.

The result is a fragmented enforcement system. A passenger banned from Delta for assaulting a flight attendant can purchase a ticket from any other U.S. carrier the same day, unrestricted. No legal or regulatory mechanism allows carriers to access one another’s ban data.

Delta’s Push — and Why It Failed

In September 2021, at the peak of a historic surge in air rage, Delta Air Lines formally called on competing U.S. carriers to share their internal no-fly lists. In a memo to flight attendants reviewed by CNBC and Fox Business, Kristen Manion Taylor, Delta’s senior vice president of in-flight service, wrote that the carrier had asked “other airlines to share their ‘no fly’ list to further protect airline employees across the industry — something we know is top of mind for you as well.” Taylor added: “A list of banned customers doesn’t work as well if that customer can fly with another airline.”

At the time, Delta had more than 1,600 passengers on its no-fly list and had submitted more than 600 of those names to the FAA under the agency’s Special Emphasis Enforcement Program.

Airlines for America — the trade group representing Delta, American Airlines and United Airlines — acknowledged that employee and passenger safety was a top priority. The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, representing approximately 50,000 cabin crew across about 20 U.S. airlines, had also been calling for a centralized registry of banned passengers.

The effort escalated in February 2022, when Delta CEO Ed Bastian wrote directly to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, requesting that the Justice Department support “putting any person convicted of an on-board disruption on a national, comprehensive, unruly passenger ‘no-fly’ list that would bar that person from traveling on any commercial air carrier.” His letter followed a statement by then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in October 2021 that a federal no-fly list for violent passengers “should be on the table.”

Despite bipartisan interest, the proposal never advanced into law or formal regulation. Privacy law was a central obstacle: sharing passenger ban data raises significant legal questions under U.S. privacy statutes, and airlines have faced Department of Transportation scrutiny over how they collect and share personal information. Civil liberties groups raised separate due process concerns. The ACLU warned that existing no-fly lists already rely on “secret evidence, vague rules,” and allow “virtually unfettered discretion and secrecy” — and that expanding the framework risked creating a new punitive infrastructure without adequate legal checks. As unruly passenger reports fell sharply from their 2021 peak, the political urgency driving the proposal dissipated.

What Protections American Passengers Have in 2026

The FAA’s enforcement authority remains the primary check on dangerous in-flight behavior.

The agency implemented a zero-tolerance policy in January 2021, directing civil penalties and criminal referrals — rather than warning letters — for any passenger who assaults, threatens, or interferes with crewmembers. As of March 2025, the FAA had initiated more than 900 civil penalty actions under its enforcement program since 2021. Maximum civil penalties have since increased with inflation adjustments: for conduct physically interfering with crew under 49 U.S.C. § 46318, the maximum penalty is now $44,792 per violation for incidents on or after Dec. 30, 2024.

Since late 2021, the FAA has operated a referral partnership with the FBI for the most serious cases. As of August 2024, the agency had referred more than 310 cases for potential criminal prosecution — incidents including attempted cockpit breaches, physical assaults on crew and passengers, sexual assaults, and assaults involving minors.

Individual airline bans remain in force indefinitely for the issuing carrier alone. There is no centralized database and no cross-airline enforcement mechanism.

The limits of that system were on display again in 2026. Delta crews faced two notable incidents: one in which staff had to block a passenger with a beverage cart, and another in which a police officer was bitten while attempting to remove a disruptive traveler from the aircraft.

The FAA in June 2021 — the worst single month on record — logged 720 unruly passenger cases. In May 2026, that figure was 162.

The U.K. Model: A Shared-Information Approach

Under the system now being developed in Britain, airlines would notify the government when a passenger is involved in serious disruptive behavior. That information would then be shared with other participating carriers, flagging the passenger at check-in for future bookings. The final decision on whether to refuse boarding would remain with individual airlines — the framework functions as a shared-information mechanism, not an automatic blacklist. A national database could be jointly overseen by the government and the aviation industry.

Tim Alderslade, chief executive of Airlines UK, told Sky News: “Additional measures for the most serious cases of disruption, including the creation of a national ban list, are an important next step in ensuring a tiny minority of passengers cannot disrupt air travel for the majority. We welcome the government’s support for further action and will work closely with ministers on delivering the right solutions.”

A U.K. government source told Sky News: “Everyone should be able to enjoy a pint at the airport, but antisocial behavior on flights is totally unacceptable. It threatens the safety of passengers and crew, and disrupts hard-earned holidays. There are already tough laws in place to deal with offenses committed on flights, but we are exploring with the industry how we can better address this issue, ensuring we crack down on people who persistently cause chaos. Everyone should be able to fly without fuss.”

The proposal faces its own legal hurdle: GDPR, which currently prohibits U.K. airlines from exchanging passenger details with other carriers even when criminal offenses occurred. Legal experts and civil liberties groups have raised concerns that the plan could set a “dangerous precedent” through the sharing of personal data and restrictions on access to transportation. Any adopted framework would not require changes to primary legislation but would need to navigate data-protection rules.

The proposal is modeled in part on British “pubwatch” schemes, in which a person barred from one pub is effectively barred from all participating establishments. Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary has endorsed a national passenger database. Sky News reports that Ryanair has seen flight diversions caused by disorderly passengers increase from one incident per week to one per day over the past decade.

UK carrier Jet2 was among the first to formally call for a national database, following a brawl on one of its flights that forced a diversion. The airline argued that passengers banned by one carrier can currently rebook with another because carriers cannot legally share information under existing data-protection rules.

UK aviation groups relaunched the “One Too Many” campaign in June 2026, warning passengers that disruptive behavior can result in denied boarding, criminal prosecution, fines and permanent bans. Campaign materials warn that causing a flight diversion can expose a passenger to costs of up to £80,000.

Global Context

The International Civil Aviation Organization classifies disruptive passenger behavior across four escalating levels — from Level 1 verbal abuse and refusal of crew instructions, through Level 2 physical assault, Level 3 life-threatening behavior including violence endangering lives or the display and use of weapons, to Level 4, an attempted or actual breach of the cockpit. Airlines worldwide use this framework to categorize incidents and calibrate responses.

The International Air Transport Association reported a modest global improvement in unruly passenger rates, from one incident every 307 flights in 2024 to one incident every 355 flights in 2025, drawn from 93,107 reports across more than 140 operators. IATA has identified gaps in the Tokyo Convention of 1963 as a contributing factor, noting that inconsistent national jurisdiction over in-flight offenses has created what the organization describes as “a culture of impunity” for disruptive passengers at overseas airports.

Background

Delta’s no-fly list had grown to nearly 1,900 passengers by February 2022, up from more than 1,600 the previous September, driven by both mask-mandate noncompliance and other disruptive behavior during the pandemic period.

In September 2021, the U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure held a hearing on the surge in in-flight incidents. Committee Chair Peter DeFazio stated at the hearing: “The amount of disruption and violent behavior on planes has reached epidemic proportions.” No legislation establishing a shared no-fly list emerged.

In March 2024, then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced the first industry-wide privacy review of the 10 largest U.S. airlines — Allegiant, Alaska, American, Delta, Frontier, Hawaiian, JetBlue, Southwest, Spirit, and United — examining how each carrier collects, handles, and uses passengers’ personal information. Any proposed no-fly data-sharing framework would need to be compatible with DOT privacy guidelines and potentially new federal regulations.