An Air France Boeing 777-200 was forced to abandon its transatlantic route to Detroit on May 20, 2026, after U.S. authorities discovered a Democratic Republic of the Congo national had been boarded in error in violation of newly enhanced Ebola entry restrictions. Flight AF378, carrying up to 312 passengers from Paris Charles de Gaulle, was redirected mid-flight to Montreal Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport, where the passenger was offloaded before the aircraft eventually continued to Michigan.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirmed the diversion in a statement, noting that the airline had inadvertently allowed a traveler subject to current public health entry rules to board the flight. The carrier is required to comply with all destination-country entry requirements, and the passenger should not have been permitted on the Detroit-bound service under the new framework.
The restrictions stem from a coordinated federal order issued on May 18 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Homeland Security, and other agencies. The measures target the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, currently circulating in parts of East and Central Africa. Under the new rules, passengers arriving from a defined list of high-risk countries β including the Democratic Republic of the Congo β may only enter U.S. territory through Washington Dulles International Airport, where enhanced screening protocols have been established.
The diversion was a logistical headache rather than a medical emergency. There was no reported illness on board, and Air France stressed that there was no clinical incident during the flight. The aircraft, an A6-class Boeing 777-200, spent several hours on the ground in Montreal while CBP officials, the airline, and Canadian authorities coordinated the offload before the long-haul service was cleared to continue to its original destination.
For Air France, the episode is a reminder of how quickly evolving public health rules can ripple through a global network. The carrier operates daily widebody service between Paris and Detroit and a separate trio of weekly frequencies to Montreal under its joint-venture network with Delta Air Lines and KLM. Industry observers expect tightened passenger-document checks at European gateways in the coming weeks, particularly for travelers connecting from African origins. The Bundibugyo outbreak β and the U.S. response to it β is now a live operational risk that every airline serving North America will have to manage at the gate.
Compiled from publicly available aviation news sources. Featured image: AI-generated by AviationShop. This article is original editorial content; facts have been verified across multiple public sources.
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