A Scandinavian Airlines pilot was arrested on arrival at the Nice, France airport on Wednesday, June 10, 2026, after a drug and alcohol check. The 45 year old captain tested positive for cocaine, and was sentenced on Thursday to 10 months suspended plus a one-year ban on flying over French territory.
The flight he was supposed to operated next, SK1828 operated by SAS Connect from Nice to Stockholm, was cancelled. There are reports that the pilot had operated a trip from Copenhagen, but the aircraft operating the cancelled flight appears to actually have been EI-SIG, SK1827 from Stockhold to Nice.
I haven’t found reporting on how much cocaine was found. There’s no ‘impairment threshold’ – it is illegal to exercise flight duties after using narcotics. The French lab threshold for cocaine in saliva or blood is 10 ng/mL. Urine screening for cocaine is 300 ng/mL.
That’s similar to the U.S., albeit different lab thresholds are used: urine at 150 ng/mL initial and 100 ng/mL confirmatory and 15 ng/mL saliva initial and 8 ng/mL confirmatory.
Up To $83,000 Passenger Compensation
An SAS Connect Airbus A320 has 180 seats, although actual passenger load was not reported. The flight from Nice to Stockholm was cancelled. Reportedly most passengers were rebooked the next day, although some may have flown the same day but in any case at least four hours delayed with connections.
Nice to Stockholm is 1,922 kilometers, so falls in the €400 per passenger compensation band for EU261 delay payment requirements. 180 passengers at 400 euros per passenger is 72,000 euros or $83,300. Of course, passengers have to know about and file claims for compensation – there is no requirement for airlines to offer it proactively (though there’s currently a push to change this).
The amount does not include ‘right to care’ costs of meals, hotel, and ground transport which are required as well.
An airline can avoid paying out cash compensation in extraordinary circumstances but the European Court of Justice has held that even an unexpected crew death or illness causing crew unavailability is inherent in airline operations and not an extraordinary circumstance. A pilot being unavailable because he failed a drug test is not an excuse.
Is Europe Compensating The Wrong Passengers?
It’s ironic that the passengers who were merely delayed are owed cash compensation, while the passengers who were flown by a captain that tested positive for cocaine aren’t. They did land safely!
Dealing With Pilot Substance Abuse Presents Real Challenges
Air travel can be a difficult career and drinking and other substance problems get hidden. Pilots with substance abuse problems are often wary of speaking up and seeking help, for fear of being sidelined, despite programs designed to encourage them to do so.
Pilots hide not just alcohol abuse but mental health conditions and that points to a fundamental conundrum: you want pilots to be open and seek help in order to promote safety, but once they’re open they’re a clearly identified risk and get removed from the cockpit. So the consequences of being open discourage that openness.
While programs are designed specifically to address this and to encourage seeking help, many pilots are still fearful of them, not trusting commitments to help rather than punish.
I am not familiar with drug testing so will defer to those with more information. However, I know one of the problems with testing for THC is that you show positive well after the effects wear off. Is Cocaine the same? Obviously, there are larger legal issue regarding use of a banned substance but, unlike alcohol, he may have tested positive as a result of use days before and was not in any way under the influence at the time.
Just curious
Loving all these EU261 stories! Keep ‘em coming, Gary! Maybe, someday, folks in the US will reject corporate propaganda and finally demand similar air passenger rights legislation.
Because, if this happened in the US, you’d be ‘entitled’ to only either a partial refund (within 7 business days if you paid with a credit card, or up to 30 days, if otherwise), or a re-routing, if available, which is super lame, bare-minimum, not covering the negligence or severe inconvenience.
At least those affected passengers in the EU get compensated, several hundred dollars at least, in addition to refunds or reroutings. C’mon, folks. We deserve better.