What happens when a company publicly states "no one is authorized to use my data for this," and another company goes ahead and does it anyway? The answer is now spelled out in a lawsuit filed in a New York court.
Flight-tracking service FlightAware has formally sued prediction market platform Kalshi, alleging unauthorized use of its data and trademarks to run a product that lets users bet on flight cancellation rates. The lawsuit was filed in New York — the same battleground where New York Attorney General Letitia James is separately suing Kalshi over allegedly running an illegal gambling operation.
Back in July 2026, Kalshi launched a market letting users bet on the cancellation rate of flights at specific airports over a given time period, marketing the underlying data as "verified by FlightAware and the U.S. Department of Transportation." The problem: FlightAware had already told the Wall Street Journal, in no uncertain terms, that "no company is authorized — now or in the future — to use data collected from the FlightAware network for this purpose, and any customer accounts found in violation of our terms of use will be terminated."
In other words, this wasn't a position FlightAware invented after the fact — it was a public warning that existed before Kalshi ever launched the product.
According to the complaint, FlightAware says it only learned Kalshi was using its data when reporters reached out for comment. It then sent a cease-and-desist letter, but Kalshi allegedly kept the product running anyway. FlightAware is now alleging breach of its terms of use, trademark infringement, and damage to its reputation, seeking damages along with a permanent injunction to bar Kalshi from using its data going forward. Engadget has reached out to Kalshi for comment and has yet to hear back.
One notable point in the complaint echoes a concern the airline industry has already raised: a prediction market built around flight cancellations could theoretically incentivize anyone looking to profit on the platform to cause "large-scale disruption to air travel." The filing doesn't accuse anyone specific of doing this, but it highlights a built-in tension in this kind of product — the more you want flights to run on time, the more the market could end up rewarding the opposite.
To be fair, Kalshi isn't operating without any safeguards. The platform verifies users' employers for certain bets to prevent insider trading, and bars politicians and athletes from wagering on elections and games they're personally involved in, respectively. But those mechanisms address who's placing a bet — not the more fundamental question of data authorization, which is exactly what FlightAware's lawsuit is targeting.
Kalshi currently operates under the oversight of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which has previously blocked state-level attempts to restrict the platform. The New York lawsuit, alongside this new complaint from FlightAware, will serve as another test of that arrangement. Engadget says it will continue to update this story as it develops, including any response from Kalshi.
