The Biden administration planned to require airlines to pay passengers for flight delays – a U.S. equivalent to Europe’s “EU261” as a shorthand. The Trump administration just killed that effort.

President Biden proposed this in spring 2023 but never fast-tracked it. It was kept as something they would do if he was elected to a second term.

In fall 2024 it cleared review by the administration’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget, and was docketed for early 2025. At the time I wrote that if Donald Trump was elected President it would likely get shelved and that is exactly what’s happened – the Deparment of Transportation has withdrawn plans to promulgate a rule.

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said this compensation would have created a bad incentives for airlines to be cautious and take delays or cancel flights for safety – that compensation compromises safety. While that’s the obvious incentive created, this hasn’t happened in the EU where airlines are required to pay today (but airlines there often ignore the rule).

The Biden administration, for its part, said this was simply an incentive for airlines to operate on time. (Delays are highly costly to begin with, of course, so airlines are already well-incentivized.)

Such a rule would have represented a significant shift in power to consumers and a huge expense to airlines. It would also would have given unions, especially pilot unions and mechanics unions, tremendous power – because their members exercise discretion that can delay flights for small details, which could have cost tens of thousands of dollars per flight.

Another concern was higher airfares. One way to think of this is the government requiring consumers to buy ‘delay insurance’ with every ticket. Right now consumers travel without this coverage, and it does not come free. Under the rule, it would be required, and every ticket would be priced to include it.

Ultimately, though, my best guess is that any rule that the Department of Transportation advanced requiring airlines to pay passengers cash compensation in the event of significant delays would have been struck down by the courts.

• The Biden administration sent legislation to Congress to require these payments. They believed they needed Congressional authority to do it.

• The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a planned DOT regulation on fee disclosure exceeds the agency’s authority. Requiring cash compensation purely based on existing authority for promoting ‘safe and efficient’ air travel or protecting consumers from ‘unfair and deceptive’ practices seems like it would have been a stretch (and certainly within the judicial circuit where it would likely have been litigated).

Of course, any administration that wants to reduce the delays experienced by passengers would focus on the actual throughput of the system: more gates, runways and taxiways at congested airports; more air traffic controllers; and better technology (and management) for the air traffic control system. Right now we’re seeing more cash investment in air traffic control. That’s overdue, but insufficient.