Gamechanger: NJ reacts to law affecting canceled flights

By October, U.S. travelers should expect a refund if a flight gets canceled or is significantly delayed.

On Wednesday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg helped outline the new protective law for airline passengers.

Flights being "significantly" delayed would be defined as three hours or more domestic, and six hours international.

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The new regulations also cover bag fees being refunded if baggage is lost or severely delayed from arriving with a traveler at their destination.

✈ Refunds must be issued without passengers having to “explicitly request them or jump through hoops.”

✈ Refunds must be made within seven business days for credit card purchases — or within 20 calendar days for other payment methods.

✈ Refunds must be given in whatever original payment method was used to make the purchase — whether cash, credit card or airline miles.

✈ Airlines may not substitute vouchers, travel credits, or other forms of compensation — unless the passenger chooses such alternative compensation.

✈ Refund must be for full amount of ticket purchase price, minus value of any transportation already finished (such as connecting flights).

Refunds must also include all government-imposed taxes and fees and airline-imposed fees.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, airline passengers have sporadically dealt with frustrating and costly flight delays and cancellations.

A crucially bad period was summer 2022 — when hundreds of flights were canceled across the U.S. ahead of July Fourth weekend.

By last year, the U.S. flight cancellation rate overall was at a "record low at under 1.2% — the lowest rate of flight cancellations in over 10 years despite a record amount of air travel," according to federal officials in Wednesday's announcement.

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