Your rights when a flight is cancelled
If your flight is cancelled and you choose not to travel on an alternative the airline offers, you are owed a refund of the fare in cash, back to the original form of payment. Since 2024 the refund is automatic: you do not have to ask for it, and the airline may not require you to accept a voucher.
That applies whatever caused the cancellation. Weather does not remove the refund obligation.
What the regulation actually says
“Refunding fare for flights cancelled or significantly delayed or changed by carriers”
In plain terms. The section title is the rule: a cancellation triggers a fare refund when you do not accept the alternative. Part 260 also requires the refund to be prompt and automatic rather than something you chase.
Read 14 CFR 260.6 in fullWhen 14 CFR Part 260 changed
Rights are not fixed. Each entry below is an amendment recorded in the regulation’s own source note, oldest first.
- Apr. 26, 2024 89 FR 32832The automatic-refund rule is published, defining for the first time what counts as a significant change.
- Aug. 12, 2024 89 FR 65536Amended.
Dates and Federal Register citations come from the source note published with the regulation. Where an entry carries no description, the source note records the amendment without summarising it, and we do not guess at what changed.
How often this actually happens
The rule tells you what you are owed. Federal performance data tells you how often the situation arises, and on which airlines. These figures are ours, computed from the sources listed at the foot of the page.
In 2024, Frontier cancelled 2.32% of its 208,624 tracked flights (95% CI ±0.065 pts), the highest rate of 15 carriers.
Reporting carriers only (DOT threshold); operating-carrier attribution.
In 2024, Southwest cancelled 0.83% of its 1,419,419 tracked flights (95% CI ±0.015 pts), the lowest rate of 15 carriers.
Reporting carriers only (DOT threshold); operating-carrier attribution.
Every figure here is validated against its source row before this page can publish. The rules behind that check are on our editorial guidelines page.
What this does not cover
- The refund is of the fare and any unused ancillary fees. It is not compensation for the disruption: US rules provide no equivalent of the EU’s fixed delay payments.
- If you accept the airline’s rebooking and fly, you have taken the alternative, and the fare is no longer refundable.
- Cancellation rates are not directly comparable between carriers, because route networks and the weather they fly through differ.
How courts have read it
We are building a case library from federal opinions on denied boarding, tarmac delays, refunds and deceptive-practice claims, sourced from CourtListener and attributed to the Free Law Project. It is not published yet, and rather than summarise holdings we have not verified line by line, this section stays empty until it is.
Row30 provides data journalism and education, not legal advice. We are not a law firm and do not represent passengers in legal proceedings. For advice about your own situation, consult an attorney.
Source: U.S. DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Airline On-Time Performance; analysis by Row30.