Airlines must give cash refunds for delays and cancellations.
H.R. 10517 — Fair Fees Act · Filed by Steve Cohen (D-TN) · Introduced Sep 21, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill requires airlines to pay passengers back in cash. Refunds apply when flights are cancelled or delayed over 3 hours for domestic flights. Refunds also apply for delays over 6 hours on international flights. Airlines can offer vouchers instead, but passengers can reject them. Credit card refunds must come within 7 business days. Cash refunds must come within 20 days. Passengers who cancel their own tickets 48 hours before departure get full refunds within 30 days. The rule applies to airlines with over $1.5 billion in yearly revenue.
Who it affects
Passengers get the right to cash refunds instead of vouchers. Airlines with over $1.5 billion in yearly revenue must follow the new rules. Smaller regional airlines do not have to follow these rules.
One thing to notice
The bill lets passengers reject vouchers and demand cash instead. Airlines can still offer vouchers, but only if passengers agree to them.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
- Sep 21, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Sep 21, 2026 — Referred to House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Words to know
- vouchers — Paper or digital slips that let passengers fly on the airline later instead of getting cash back.
- revenue — Money a company makes from selling tickets and services.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (6,496 characters) on Sep 25, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,985 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
As of — page rendered 2026-09-25.
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