FlightAware Cancels Lawsuit Against Kalshi, But Flight Cancellation Market Remains Open for Trading

FlightAware has voluntarily dismissed its lawsuit against Kalshi after the prediction market platform added a disclaimer distancing itself from the flight-tracking company’s data. The two sides appear to have reached an out-of-court resolution just days after the suit was filed in a New York federal court, but the underlying flight-cancellation market at the center of the dispute remains live and open for trading.

FlightAware accused Kalshi of violating a binding agreement not to use its data for commercial gambling purposes, arguing that Kalshi built betting pages around flight cancellations “verified by FlightAware’s data” and displayed FlightAware’s trademark without permission, even after being told to stop.

What Changed on Kalshi’s Market

Shortly after FlightAware filed its complaint, Kalshi swapped out direct references to FlightAware on its flight-cancellation market page in favor of the vaguer label “Primary Source Agency.” The platform also added new disclaimer language clarifying that any references to the data source’s cancellation page are “descriptive only” and do not imply endorsement or affiliation. Notably, the “Primary Source Agency” link on the page still routes users directly to FlightAware’s site — the substance didn’t change, just the labeling.

That appears to have been enough to satisfy FlightAware, which withdrew its lawsuit the following day. Neither company responded to requests for comment on the resolution.

The JFK Market and a Corporate Hedge That Backfired Publicly

The market in question lets traders bet on whether more than 50% of scheduled flights at New York’s JFK Airport will be canceled on October 21. It didn’t emerge organically — Kalshi created it in July at the request of NextPredict, a company describing itself as the organizer of “the world’s first global B2B prediction markets conference.” NextPredict is holding its conference in New York on October 22-23 and used the Kalshi market to hedge against the financial risk of a weather-related disruption, securing $3 million in coverage from Susquehanna, a major market maker on the Kalshi platform. NextPredict said it paid $12,000 in premium for contracts that would return the cost of the summit if the cancellation threshold is hit.

The idea, according to NextPredict co-founder and managing director Pierre Lindh, is that prediction markets can offer event organizers a cheaper, more flexible alternative to traditional insurance against cancellation risk. It echoes a similar approach reportedly used by a La Liga soccer club, which was said to have used Kalshi to hedge against relegation risk, though the club in question denied authorizing the trades and instead pointed to a standard insurance policy.

Despite Kalshi’s public framing of the JFK market as a niche tool limited to roughly 1,000 institutional users, CasinoBeats reported that ordinary retail users could still place trades on it without restriction, testing it with a $1 wager that processed without issue. Beyond the $3 million NextPredict said it secured through Susquehanna, more than $41,700 in additional volume has traded on the market, which currently prices in just a 2.8% chance of the 50% cancellation threshold being reached.

Part of a Larger Legal Fight

The FlightAware dispute is a relatively minor skirmish compared to the broader legal pressure Kalshi is facing over its sports-related markets. Just a day before the FlightAware suit was dropped, Connecticut became the latest of nine states to rule against Kalshi, with a judge likening its parlay-style contracts to casino gaming subject to state gambling law. Kalshi has consistently maintained that its markets operate legally under federal commodities law rather than state gambling statutes, a position that continues to be tested state by state.

For now, the JFK flight-cancellation market remains the only one of its kind on Kalshi’s platform, and the company has not said whether it plans to roll out similar contracts tied to other airports or events going forward. As prediction markets keep expanding into unconventional betting categories, disputes like this one over data rights and endorsement are likely to keep surfacing alongside the bigger regulatory battles playing out across the industry, an area where the legal landscape is still very much in flux.