Virgin Atlantic fined by the FAA for overflying Iraq

[BFSGrad]

Originally Posted by Bksmithca

So based on the news article, Virgin was fined for flights from Sept 2020 to Sept 2021. The article was released in Jan 2023 roughly 18 months after the last offending flight. So BA35 was flying today, so comeback in 18 month and we can discuss why or why not.

The NOTAM that VA violated was rescinded on 10/22/21.

[BFSGrad]

Originally Posted by WHBM

BA35 currently overhead Iraq on London to Chennai, which carries the American Airlines codeshare AA6669 and shows on the AA ticketing site as JFK-LHR-Chennai, with the second leg on the BA flight.

So what's different, to have cost Virgin a million dollars ?

SFAR 77, which is currently active, prohibits air carrier ops below FL320 in the Baghdad region. BAW35 was well above this altitude during cruise flight.

[punkalouver]

Reminds me of a vacation I took to Dubai just prior to Covid. The in flight map display showed us flying south along the Iranian border just inside Iraq, like a lot of airlines. This was just a few days after the U.S. killed Solemeini. While in Dubai, the big missile attack by Iran happened. Thought I would look at one of those FlightRadar sites to see the routing of my airline's flights. It was quite interesting to see that the return flight was along the same(or almost the same route in the opposite direction). Then I decide to look at the location of the two bases that were hit. One was long that route. Which made me wonder how close the aircraft was when the missiles were flying. Within the hour was the answer. All this after the lesson that should have been learned from the Malaysian airliner shot down by the Russian separatists in Ukraine.....why by chance, I had flown on that route as a crewmember two weeks previous.

[ATC Watcher]

Originally Posted by BFSGrad

SFAR 77, which is currently active, prohibits air carrier ops below FL320 in the Baghdad region. BAW35 was well above this altitude during cruise flight.

As an aside this FL320 restriction does not come from US military intelligence but is given by the Iraqi authorities to allow overfights and get the dollars associated with the overflight charges. It was excatly the same restriction in force over east Ukraine at the time of MH17 for excatly the same reasons : money..
The question we had as ATC at the time of Ukraine was what would a pilot would do if instructed to decend to FL310 due to conflicting traffic .Refuse the instruction .? before mentioning TCAS, Russian military transponders are ot visible on TCAS and are not RSVM either Just like in Yemen at the moment there are SAM deployed in Iraq. Some iIraqi militia having them are controlled by Iran . Most of the western controllers working in Baghdad ATC have left the country. Why do some airlines ( not all) are still overflying Iraq ? : same reason as in Ukraine in 2014 : saving money.
.

[Flyhighfirst]

Originally Posted by Australopithecus

I think the contract is between the passenger and the ticket issuer. Which is not to say that any party will escape liability if the damages are high enough.

Basically before and after the flight you deal with the ticketing carrier. On the day of the flight you deal with the operating carrier.

[MLHeliwrench]

Originally Posted by rudestuff

I wonder if the US DOT will be issuing speeding fines on the Autobahn as well?

Does my Greyhound ticket work on a DB Bahn bus?

[T28B]

Bksmithca
So based on the news article, Virgin was fined for flights from Sept 2020 to Sept 2021. The article was released in Jan 2023 roughly 18 months after the last offending flight. So BA35 was flying today, so comeback in 18 month and we can discuss why or why not.
BFSGrad
The NOTAM that VA violated was rescinded on 10/22/21.

But how many people read the whole article? ​​​​​​​ Thank you for the update.