1975 February 3rd. Denmark, Copenhagen Airport: on board of a Japan Airline Boeing 747 344 passengers traveling from Anchorage Alaska to Denmark were served breakfast ham, which was contaminated with staphylococcus. On arrival 139 passengers had become ill with severe pain, vomiting, and cramps, and needed immediate medical attention and hospitalization.
The contamination occurred through an infected employee in a catering facility in Anchorage. Subsequently, the Japanese director of the catering company shot himself a few days later.
Lessons to learn: To ensure safety flight crew members should be given meals from different sources.

2001 February/March U.S., New York, JFK Airport: work slowdown staged by aircraft mechanics, protesting their union's contract; American Airlines had to cancel 150 flights out of JFK

2001 July 29, Demonstrations, Germany, Frankfurt/Main International Airport: police closed off the airport to visitors after several hundred people protested peacefully at Germany's asylum policy, at one stage up to 300 protesters managed to get into the airport terminal for about one hour, chanting slogans.

No flights were disrupted by the gathering, some ticketed passengers faced brief delays at Europe's busiest with about 150,000 passengers passing through it each day.

The German government contracts Lufthansa airlines to take home nearly 10,000 rejected asylum seekers a year.

Some are restrained during the flight and escorted by guards. Deportation using commercial airlines grabbed headlines in Europe following the deaths of several immigrants, including a Sudanese passenger in 1999 on a Lufthansa flight. According to a report in German news magazine Der Spiegel, an expert has concluded that the Sudanese man suffocated because of the force with which three German police officers pinned him in his seat during takeoff.

Lufthansa has strengthened its policy of turning down illegals who are bound, helmeted or resisting deportation.

Belgium's Sabena airlines decided to stop transporting deportees against their will after a Nigerian died on a Sabena flight in 1998.

Swissair banned flying deportees in manacles after a Palestinian died on a flight last year.