FlightAware has sued prediction market platform Kalshi in federal court in New York, alleging unauthorized use of its flight data and trademark for airline cancellation contracts. The case adds a data-rights dispute to Kalshi’s existing state-level legal challenges over event wagering.
FlightAware has sued prediction market platform Kalshi in federal court in New York, alleging unauthorized use of its flight data and trademark for airline cancellation contracts. The case adds a data-rights dispute to Kalshi’s existing state-level legal challenges over event wagering.
FlightAware has filed a federal lawsuit against Kalshi in the Southern District of New York, accusing the prediction market platform of using its flight data and trademark without permission to support bets on airline cancellations. The flight-tracking company is seeking damages and an injunction to stop further use of its data and logo.
FlightAware has filed a federal lawsuit against Kalshi in the Southern District of New York, accusing the prediction market platform of using its flight data and trademark without permission to support bets on airline cancellations. The flight-tracking company is seeking damages and an injunction to stop further use of its data and logo.
The dispute matters because it could help define how prediction markets use third-party data to settle event contracts. For platforms such as Kalshi, reliable external data is central to resolving markets; for data providers, the case raises questions about commercial licensing, attribution and control over how their datasets are monetized.
According to the complaint cited by CoinDesk, Kalshi began offering nationwide and local flight cancellation markets on July 14, the same day it submitted a filing with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to list those event contracts. The contracts let users take positions on the percentage of scheduled flights canceled during a specific period.
FlightAware alleges that Kalshi had accepted license terms barring commercial use of its data, including through an AeroApi account registered by a Kalshi employee in 2022. Kalshi denied violating FlightAware’s license or infringing its mark, arguing that its references to FlightAware qualified as nominative fair use, according to the report.
FlightAware also said Kalshi added a disclaimer stating that the markets were not endorsed by FlightAware, but argued that the disclaimer did not resolve the issue because Kalshi continued to say FlightAware data would determine outcomes. The complaint also says Kalshi identified U.S. Department of Transportation flight data as an alternative settlement source.
The lawsuit comes as Kalshi faces separate actions from New York, Wisconsin and Nevada over alleged unlicensed gambling. Unlike those cases, FlightAware’s claim centers on whether a prediction market can rely on a third party’s data and branding without a commercial agreement. CoinDesk reported that Kalshi did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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