Topline

The Trump administration’s move to scrap a Biden-era proposal to give customers cash refunds when flights are significantly disrupted follows relentless and often partisan lobbying from the airline industry, and marks a boon to their efforts.

Airlines will not be required to offer automatic cash refunds to passengers whose flights were significantly disrupted.

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Airlines for America—which represents the carriers Alaska, American, Atlas Air, Delta, Hawaiian, JetBlue, Southwest and United—confirmed to Forbes that it had spent roughly $5.7 million on campaign donations in 2024. The largest amounts went to Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), both members of the U.S. Senate Committee for Commerce & Transportation. On April 2, the DOT quietly opened a docket seeking comments through May 5 on "Ensuring Lawful Governance and Implementation of the President's 'Department of Government Efficiency' Deregulatory Agenda." In response, the airline lobby filed a 93-page comment remarkable in its partisan tone and signed by the CEOs of seven major U.S. airlines. The document referred to “Biden/Buttigieg” 38 times—often modified with adjectives such as “unlawful” or “deceitful”—while beseeching Duffy “to implement the President’s deregulatory agenda.” In a statement to Forbes, Airlines for America echoed this tone. “We are encouraged by this Department of Transportation reviewing unnecessary and burdensome regulations that exceed its authority and don’t solve issues important to our customers,” the group said. “We look forward to working with DOT on implementing President Trump’s deregulatory agenda.”

In 2024, as part of his campaign against “junk fees,” former president Joe Biden announced two new rules for airlines designed to help consumers save over half a billion dollars every year that they were overpaying in airline fees. The first would have mandated that carriers provide automatic full cash refunds instead of in response to customer requests when flights are canceled or significantly changed, when baggage return is significantly delayed and when ancillary services like inflight Wi-Fi are not provided to passengers who purchased them. It had been commonplace for airlines to issue a travel credit or voucher by default instead of a cash refund, and passengers often complained of having to jump through hoops on the airlines’ website or app or spend lengthy sessions waiting on the phone. The second rule aimed to squash so-called “surprise junk fees.” Buttigieg said airlines “really developed this business model, especially over the last 10 or 20 years where there are all kinds of little charges of charges.” Under the proposed regulations, DOT would have required airlines and ticket agents to tell consumers upfront what fees they charge for checked bags, a carry-on bag, for changing a reservation, or canceling a reservation—not after they’ve bought their ticket, making it nearly impossible to compare options when shopping for a flight. The proposal was opened for public comment last year, but it had not taken effect.

Airlines are the big winners, while passenger advocacy groups say American consumers are the big losers—as U.S. policy lags regions like Europe, where airlines are held financially accountable for flight disruptions and passenger protections are more robust. This summer, for example, European Parliament voted to ban carriers from levying carry-on fees. Ultimately, the Biden administration’s proposed rules were designed to encourage airlines to be more efficient, Tomasz Pawliszyn, CEO of AirHelp, a passengers-rights group, argued to Forbes. In European Union countries, where passengers can claim compensation for both delays and cancellations, there is a clear financial incentive for airlines not to cancel flights at the last minute. As a result, Pawliszyn said, the US has more flight cancellations and more long delays than Europe. In July 2025, North America saw a 42% increase in cancellations year over year, compared to 30% for Europe, according to Cirium data. “The rules around refunds and compensation are to make airlines stick to what they promise, so the whole ecosystem benefits from efficiency of the operations,” Pawliszyn said, “and this is purely because there are no consequences in the U.S.” In its 93-page comment, Airlines for America suggested the DOT scrap the requirement that airlines report their performance statistics publicly for Air Travel Consumer Reports, “to save the American taxpayer from unnecessary costs and bureaucracy” … “with little-to-no adverse impact on any potential benefit.”

$900 million per month. That’s how much the 11 largest U.S. passenger airlines issued in customer refunds between January 2020 and December 2023, Airlines for America (A4A), the lobby group for the North American airline industry, said in a statement to Forbes in April 2024.

U.S. airlines raked in $6.7 billion in net profit in 2024—a 14% drop from the previous year, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS). Industry reports chalked up the drop to a combination of higher operating costs and weaker-than-expected demand in the U.S. domestic market. In recent years, as much as 15% of airline revenue has come from charging ancillary fees for all sorts of additional amenities, including inflight Wi-Fi, checked bags, priority boarding, premium seat selection and so on. The global airline industry’s haul from these fees ballooned from $42.6 billion in 2013 to over $102 billion in 2022, according to a report from OAG Aviation.

Biden: Airlines Must Provide Automatic Cash Refunds, More Transparency (Forbes)