Is There a Limit to How Many Times an Airline Can Delay Your Flight?
Read today's edition of Gate Access • August 18, 2025
Happy Monday. I recently had a discussion regarding flight delays and how I believe there should be a cap on the number of times a flight can be delayed before it’s ultimately cancelled. Let’s get into it.
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🤔 Is there a limit on how many times a U.S. airline can delay a flight?
Unfortunately, there’s no fixed limit on how many times a flight can be delayed in the U.S. In principle, a flight could be delayed repeatedly until it's either flown or officially cancelled.
This, in my opinion, is unacceptable, and there should be a cap on how many times an airline can delay your flight until it’s considered cancelled. Of course, within reasonable limits that don’t relate to weather.
The interesting thing is that the Biden Administration attempted to address this issue.
On December 5, 2024, the DOT issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would require airlines to pay cash compensation based on the length of the delay. An example would look like this: $200 to $300 for 3–6 hour disruptions, scaling up for longer delays, plus formalized care (meals, lodging, rebooking).
To the airlines' satisfaction, the proposal was not finalized, and travelers are still at risk of spending the day at the airport due to the lack of a cap on delay limits.
Yes, the cap will be challenging, but it’s not fair that travelers are left delayed due to non-weather-related issues for hours.
So what are travelers’ legal rights in this scenario
This situation is somewhat confusing because, in the U.S., there’s no law guaranteeing compensation like Europe’s EC 261, which provides cash payouts for delays. But there are protections for U.S. travelers, just in a different way.
Airlines are to issue refunds for “significant delays”.
These are delays that exceed 3 hours for domestic flights and 6 hours for international flights. There’s also protection for Tarmac delays, which are 3 hours for domestic flights and 4 hours for international flights, plus food/water after 2 hours.
Here’s a free download to help you when you find yourself in a situation where you’re trying to determine what to do when your flight is delayed or canceled.
Look forward to more digital downloads as I’m currently sorting through all my newsletters to create more of these for specific situations.