The U.S. Government Is Ending Key Protections for Flight Delays. Here's When the New Rules Go Into Effect

A rule change made by the U.S. Department of Transportation could mean airline passengers would be entitled to even less in the way of meals and hotel accommodations following significant flight delays, starting Feb. 1, 2027.

You guys, we're beginning to think we won't get that "golden age of travel" after all.

Trump's DOT claims to be working on bringing that about.

Some idealists might assume a golden age should include, say, guaranteeing that airlines can't strand you at the terminal without so much as a meal voucher to use at the airport Chili's.

But Trump's administration ditched a Biden-era rule that would have required carriers to compensate passengers for significant flight delays caused by the airline. That would have brought the United States closer to what's guaranteed to passengers in Europe.

Instead, about all the U.S. federal government will commit to is to "hold airlines accountable" if they fail to "adhere to the promises that they make in their customer service plan, including commitments to care for customers in the event of controllable delays or cancellations," as explained at the DOT's Airline Cancellation and Delay Dashboard.

The nine major U.S. airlines have all committed to providing meals or vouchers for customers who have to wait 3 hours or more due to a delayed or canceled flight when it's the airline's fault, and all of them except Frontier Airlines will provide complimentary hotel accommodations for an overnight cancellation that is the airline's fault.

Now, however, the DOT has issued a new rule that clarifies and expands the list of events that are considered not the airline's fault, thereby giving carriers more reasons to deny compensation to stranded passengers.

The regulation was scheduled to go into effect Oct. 19, but has been postponed to February of next year, according to the Federal Register, after the industry group Airlines for America requested an extension.

10 delay-causing issues now considered outside of airlines' control

Up to now, as explained by law firm Crowell & Moring, issues considered under the airline's control have been pretty broadly defined: "maintenance issues, crew scheduling, aircraft cleaning," and so on.

But according to the amended regulation, a list of 10 delay-causing issues have been specifically classified as uncontrollable.

Some of them, such as damage caused by extreme weather, are holdovers from before. Others relate to stuff like aircraft maintenance and system outages for which airlines can now place blame elsewhere so they won't be held responsible in the event of delays.

Here's the full list of 10 issues that the DOT now considers beyond an airline's control:

1. aircraft cleaning necessitated by the death of a passenger
2. aircraft damage caused by extreme weather, foreign object debris, or sabotage
3. a baggage or cargo loading delay caused by an outage of a bag system not controlled by a carrier or its contractor
4. cybersecurity attacks (provided that the air carrier is in compliance with applicable cybersecurity regulations)
5. a shutdown or system failure of government systems that directly affects the ability of an air carrier to conduct flights safely and is unexpected
6. overheated brakes due to a safety incident resulting in the use of emergency procedures
7. unscheduled maintenance, including in response to an airworthiness directive, manifesting outside a scheduled maintenance program that cannot be deferred or must be addressed before flight
8. an emergency that required medical attention through no fault of the carrier
9. the removal of an unruly passenger
10. an airport closure due to the presence of volcanic ash, wind, or wind shear

Starting Feb. 1, airline commitments to compensate customers for flight disruptions don't count if the extended delay or cancellation was caused by one of those 10 things.

Because the updated rule requires a change in how carriers report disruptions, Airlines for America, when requesting the extension for implementation, argued that the industry needed more time to "update their systems to ensure that the data is collected, reported, and ingested properly," per the Federal Register.

The federal government agreed with the trade association, so Feb. 1 it is.

Industry group claims "market forces" will take care of everything

As TheStreet pointed out back in September, "It’s possible some airlines will continue or even expand" the commitments they've made regarding flight disruptions, in spite of the new rule.

After all, carriers are already under no legal obligation to provide compensation for delays and cancellations, but most have volunteered to do so anyway—albeit in a limited capacity.

The federal government has pledged to hold the companies "accountable" for those promises made to customers, but is now giving those companies so much leeway that the airlines are essentially left to police themselves.

Another, larger trade association, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), thinks that's just grand.

"Regulation that requires airlines alone to pay compensation or provide care and assistance as a result of delays does not address the fundamental problem of why delays occur," IATA argues, presumably with a straight face. "[Such regulation] ignores that market forces at play will compel airlines to offer solutions in order to keep their customers."

Right, because up to now, airlines left to their own devices wouldn't dare to inconvenience customers.

An earlier version of this story has been updated.