Airlines must tell you when maintenance delays your flight—and how long.
H.R. 3653 — ON TIME Act · Filed by August Pfluger (R-TX) · Introduced May 29, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill requires airlines to tell passengers immediately when a flight is delayed due to maintenance or crew rest issues, either with an estimated delay time or a notice that no estimate is available yet, with updates as soon as an estimate exists. Airlines must communicate this via airport announcements, gate displays, and direct text/email/app notifications.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is a disclosure requirement—airlines must inform passengers of maintenance/crew delay estimates via multiple channels. This is a straightforward consumer-protection measure requiring transparency, not a subsidy, immunity grant, or deregulation.
What the text implies
- Airlines may face operational pressure to provide estimates quickly, potentially incentivizing faster maintenance decisions or crew scheduling to minimize passenger frustration and reputational damage.
- The requirement applies only to delays with no replacement aircraft/crew available—delays resolved by substitution are not covered, creating a narrow disclosure scope.
- Repeated notices of 'no estimate available' may frustrate passengers but do not impose substantive operational burden on carriers.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Passengers gain mandatory, immediate disclosure of delay estimates for maintenance and crew issues, reducing uncertainty and enabling better travel decisions. The requirement is transparent, imposes no cost on travelers, and addresses a genuine information asymmetry.
Named in the bill
U.S. Department of Transportation, Air carriers / airlines, Passengers, Title 49 United States Code
Where it stands
- May 29, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- May 29, 2025 — 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.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Dec 2025 to Dec 2025. Those filings disclosed $230,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 2 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
August Pfluger, the sponsor, reported $1,070,325 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- London Stock Exchange Group — $230,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jan 18, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,926 characters) on May 21, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 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.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Dec 2025. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jan 18, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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