Receiving compensation for flight delays and cancellations in the US has long been a major pain point for travelers—especially those accustomed to the legal protections granted to airline passengers in Europe and Canada.
Under the Biden administration, the Department of Transportation (DOT) made it a priority to address this. But now, the DOT has officially abandoned a federal plan that would have helped ease the financial burden of lengthy flight delays for airline passengers in the US.
The plan was introduced in 2023, when the Biden administration proposed a new rule that would require US airlines to compensate passengers with cash payments if their flight was canceled or delayed for three hours or more due to issues within the airline’s control. On September 5, the Trump administration’s DOT officially scrapped the proposal.
If the proposed regulation had been put into effect, impacted passengers would receive between $200 and $775 in extra monetary compensation for flight disruptions caused by problems like airline short-staffing, mechanical problems with the aircraft, or the increasingly common computer system meltdown. It would also require airlines to cover extra costs that passengers incurred during the disruptions, including meals, hotels, and any additional transportation required.
Compensation policies like these are commonplace in many other countries, especially in Europe, where the EU 261 regulation requires all airlines operating within the European Union to make similar payments to delayed travelers, while also covering extra costs.
Right now, many US airlines do offer to cover travelers’ meals, hotels, and transportation on a voluntary basis during lengthy delays or during a cancellation. However, without the proposed rule in place, airlines aren’t required to provide these conveniences and can choose to stop offering this support to fliers at any time. In fact, several US carriers only began to cover those extra expenses after the Biden administration urged them to in 2022.
Pete Buttigieg, the former Secretary of Transportation who proposed the rule, said the DOT is “starting to dismantle” passenger protections gained under the Biden administration. “We just learned last week that they are eliminating a rule that we launched to give you compensation in the event of an extreme delay,” Buttigieg said on X. “And they filed paperwork showing that they may get rid of other rules or weaken them.”
How will this impact travelers?
For now, US travelers won’t see any immediate changes as a result of scrapped proposal, says Brett Snyder, president of travel assistance company Cranky Concierge. Airline passengers “have never been compensated [with cash payments] for delays in the US, so this just keeps the status quo,” Snyder tells Condé Nast Traveler. “In theory if that previous plan had gone into effect, people could have been paid for delays, but it very well may also have resulted in higher ticket prices to cover the costs of paying that out.”
If your flight is canceled, US airlines are still required to provide you with automatic cash refunds if you decide not to accept a flight voucher or rebooking on another flight. That policy is unaffected and remains a federal regulation.
