FlightAware has sued Kalshi in federal court, accusing the prediction market operator of using its flight data and trademarks without authorization to run gambling markets on flight cancellations.
The filing
The complaint was submitted August 10, 2026, in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, case 1:26-cv-06824. It names Kalshi Inc. along with several affiliated entities and asserts breach of contract, trademark infringement under the Lanham Act, and unfair competition. FlightAware is seeking a jury trial and has not specified how much it seeks in damages.
How the dispute started
Kalshi began letting users bet on the share of flights canceled nationally, or at specific airports, about a month before the suit was filed. According to the complaint, Kalshi submitted a self-certification to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in mid-July 2026 that designated FlightAware as the primary source agency for determining the outcome of contracts tied to cancellation rates at named airports over set periods.
FlightAware says Kalshi never told it that its data would be used this way. “Kalshi never informed FlightAware that it would rely on FlightAware’s data to determine the outcome of these betting markets,” the complaint states. FlightAware maintains it only learned of the markets once media coverage of them began.
Data access pulled
FlightAware says Kalshi had previously agreed not to use its data for commercial activities, including gambling or prediction markets. Once FlightAware learned of the cancellation contracts, it canceled Kalshi’s access to its AeroAPI service and sent cease-and-desist notices. The complaint alleges Kalshi kept offering the contracts and continued invoking the FlightAware name and branding after those notices went out.
A safety argument, not just a contract one
FlightAware’s complaint goes beyond the licensing dispute. It raises an objection the airline industry has made about prediction markets generally: paying people when flights get canceled creates a financial incentive to want them canceled, giving anyone with influence over a departure decision, however indirect, a route to profit from disruption. FlightAware frames this as a safety risk for travelers and airport staff, not just a commercial one.
Part of a wider pattern
Kalshi’s flight-cancellation contracts are the latest prediction market product to draw pushback from outside the CFTC’s own oversight. Spain has already blocked Kalshi and Polymarket in a licensing crackdown, while other jurisdictions are still working out how to treat the products at all: Gibraltar has pushed to license prediction markets even as EU regulators hold back, and the products have grown fast enough in the US that they’re now reshaping the sports betting market Kalshi competes in.
What happens next
Kalshi has not commented publicly on the lawsuit. The case now sits on the SDNY docket, and it will test how far a sports-data licensing agreement can be stretched to cover a prediction market that uses the same data to settle bets rather than to inform them. For an industry watching regulators in Madrid, Gibraltar and Washington take different positions on the same product, a federal court ruling on the contract and trademark questions could shape how data providers write their next licensing terms.
Source: FlightAware
