Airlines must give cash refunds when flights cancel or delay badly.
S. 5446 — Cash Refunds for Flight Cancellations Act · Filed by Ed Markey (D-MA) · 8 cosponsors · Introduced Sep 22, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
The bill requires airlines to pay cash back to passengers. Flights that are cancelled, delayed 3+ hours (6+ hours international), or changed must get refunds. Passengers can also get cash back if they cancel within 48 hours of departure. Airlines can offer vouchers only if they say so clearly and vouchers never expire. Airlines have 7 days to refund credit card payments.
Who it affects
Passengers get cash refunds instead of airline vouchers that might expire. Airlines must tell passengers about refund rules and timelines clearly.
One thing to notice
The federal government must write rules for ticket agents within 1 year to apply the same refund rules.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
8 cosponsors: 7 Democrats, 1 Independents.
- Sep 22, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Sep 22, 2026 — Referred to Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Words to know
- cancelled — a flight that does not happen
- vouchers — slips that let you fly later instead of getting money back
- refunds — money paid back to a passenger
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (6,524 characters) on Sep 26, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 15,163 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 2026-09-26.
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