FlightAware sues Kalshi over flight-cancellation market data
Flight-tracking service FlightAware sued prediction market platform Kalshi in New York federal court on August 10, accusing it of using FlightAware's data and name without authorization to run flight-cancellation event contracts. The lawsuit, filed as case 1:26-cv-06824 in the Southern District of New York, targets markets where users trade on whether specific flights will be cancelled. FlightAware is also seeking a temporary restraining order.
Kalshi now faces three simultaneous lawsuits in New York alone, each on a different theory: state gambling law, federal contract-market preemption, and now FlightAware's intellectual-property and data-theft claims. The flight-cancellation vertical was a product differentiator for Kalshi against Polymarket and other regulated venues; losing it would erase a unique revenue stream.
A temporary restraining order would halt trading before the merits are heard, setting a precedent that data owners can freeze prediction markets by alleging unauthorized use. For traders, the suit raises new questions about whether event-contract platforms can safely use third-party data feeds at all. Kalshi must now defend data licensing on top of gambling characterizations and federal preemption fights, stretching legal resources across three distinct battle lines in a single jurisdiction.
FlightAware's suit adds a third distinct litigation front against Kalshi in New York, alongside the state attorney general's gambling case and the CFTC's federal action, after a judge there already denied the CFTC's preemption motion this week.