Data / Federal rules / 2025-22415
Airline Customer Service Commitments for Controllable Flight Disruptions: Unscheduled Maintenance in Response to FAA Airworthiness Directives
The Transportation Department published this final rule in the Federal Register on December 10, 2025. It took effect on December 10, 2025.
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What the agency says
On November 28, 2025, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued Emergency Airworthiness Directive (EAD) 2025-24-51 requiring airlines to replace or modify affected elevator aileron computers (ELAC) used in certain Airbus aircraft. Due to the significant impact of the EAD on the fleets of some U.S. airlines, clarity was requested from the Department's Office of Aviation Consumer Protection (OACP) regarding airlines' responsibility to provide amenities such as meals and hotels for consumers affected by cancellations or significant delays due to unscheduled maintenance required to comply with the EAD. The largest U.S. airlines have generally committed to provide free rebooking, hotel, and meals to mitigate passenger inconveniences when the cause of a cancellation or significant delay was due to circumstances within the airline's control. This notice announces that as a matter of enforcement discretion, OACP will not treat cancellations or lengthy delays resulting from unscheduled maintenance in response to an airworthiness directive that cannot be deferred or must be addressed before a flight to be due to circumstances within airline control for the purposes of these types of airlines customer service commitments.
Key facts
- Document number
- 2025-22415
- Type
- Final rule
- Action
- Notification of enforcement discretion
- Agency
- Transportation Department
- Published
- December 10, 2025
- Takes effect
- December 10, 2025
- Dates
- This enforcement policy is effective December 10, 2025 and remains in effect until further notice or conclusion of the Department's rulemaking titled Revisions to Cause of Airline Delay Categories (RIN 2105-AF29), whichever occurs first.
- Docket
- Docket No. DOT-OST-2025-2349
- Regulation ID (RIN)
- 2105-ZA50
- Code of Federal Regulations
- 14 CFR 259
- Pages
- 2
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Everything from the Transportation Department · Published in December 2025
Read from the Federal Register API, last updated 2026-10-23. The document on federalregister.gov is the official record; dates and dockets can change through later corrections. Free to reuse with credit to SpecStream under CC BY 4.0.