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US rules are weaker than most travellers assume. For a domestic flight, there is no legal entitlement to cash compensation for a delay — only to a refund if you choose not to travel. What you get beyond that depends on the airline's own published commitments, which are enforceable, and on whether the delay was within the airline's control.
Key Travel Facts & Insights
The clearest protection US travellers have is the refund right. If your flight is cancelled or significantly changed and you choose not to travel on the alternative offered, the airline must refund you to your original form of payment — automatically, and regardless of how cheap or restricted your ticket was.
This applies whether the cause was the airline's fault, the weather, or air traffic control. Cause is irrelevant to the refund right.
What you receive beyond a refund turns on whether the delay was within the airline's control. Mechanical problems, crew shortages, IT failures and aircraft swaps are controllable. Weather, air traffic control restrictions and security events are not.
For controllable delays, every major US carrier now publishes commitments to rebook you on its own flights at no cost, provide meal vouchers for delays over three hours, and provide hotel accommodation and ground transport for overnight delays. These commitments are published in each airline's customer service plan and the DOT enforces them.
Get in two queues at once. Join the physical customer service line and simultaneously open the airline app and start a chat or call. Whichever reaches an agent first wins, and during a large disruption the app is usually faster than the desk.
Ask specifically what you want rather than asking what is available: a seat on a named later flight, a hotel voucher, a meal voucher, or a refund. Agents work faster against a specific request.
Separate DOT rules cover being stuck on an aircraft on the ground. Airlines must provide an opportunity to leave the aircraft after three hours on a domestic flight and four hours on an international flight, must provide food and water after two hours, and must maintain working lavatories and medical attention throughout.
These are hard rules with substantial penalties, and airlines take them seriously.
The calculation changes completely. A flight departing the EU or UK — on any airline, including a US carrier — falls under EU261 or UK261, which require cash compensation of €250–€600 or £220–£520 per passenger for cancellations at short notice and arrival delays over three hours.
Flights to, from or within Canada fall under the Air Passenger Protection Regulations, requiring CAD 400–1,000 for delays within the airline's control. Both apply to US citizens and both must be claimed rather than offered.
No. There is no US law requiring cash compensation for a domestic flight delay. You are entitled to a refund if you choose not to travel, and to meals and hotel for controllable delays under each airline's published commitments — but not to a compensation payment the way European rules require.
You still have the refund right if the flight is cancelled and you choose not to travel. But weather is an uncontrollable delay, so the airline is not obliged to provide meals, hotel or ground transport. Many will offer a distressed-passenger hotel rate; ask for it.
Often yes. Trip delay coverage typically reimburses meals and accommodation after a defined delay threshold, usually six or twelve hours, and applies regardless of whether the cause was within the airline's control. Keep every receipt and the airline's written confirmation of the delay length and reason.
Our US travel consultants handle changes, cancellations, refunds and claims directly. No charge to ask.