The agreement states that American Airlines is not liable for special, incidental, or consequential damages arising from air transportation, including lost business or profits.
This analysis describes what American Airlines's agreement states, permits, or reserves. It does not constitute a legal determination about enforceability. Regulatory applicability and practical outcomes may vary by jurisdiction, enforcement context, and individual circumstances. Read our methodology
This provision limits passenger recovery to direct damages only, excluding business losses, missed connections with independent consequences, and other downstream financial impacts. The enforceability of this limitation may vary by jurisdiction and route type, particularly for international carriage governed by the Montreal Convention.
Interpretive note: The interaction between this contractual exclusion and Montreal Convention liability provisions for international carriage creates interpretive uncertainty; applicable law may limit the scope of the exclusion on certain routes.
The updated Terms of Use no longer include explicit statements about how American Airlines uses performance cookies to analyze site usage and track popular pages, or how functional cookies remember your preferences like language and region settings. Previously, the terms disclosed that cookies are essential to site operation and cannot be rejected. The removal of these disclosures means users visiting the American Airlines website will not find this granular explanation of cookie purposes in the terms themselves, though cookie collection may continue through other disclosure mechanisms such as a separate privacy policy or cookie banner.
View change record →This new provision broadly exempts American from liability for indirect damages like lost business profits, significantly limiting passenger remedies.
View full change record →Under this clause, passengers are limited to recovering direct costs related to a service failure; claims for lost business income, missed events, or other downstream financial consequences are excluded from American's stated liability. The enforceability of this exclusion on international routes may be subject to Montreal Convention provisions, which may interact with this limitation.
How other platforms handle this
If you knowingly misrepresent that any activity or material on our Services is infringing, you may be liable to ActiveCampaign for certain costs and damages.
A party's liability for any Liability under these Terms will be reduced proportionately to the extent the relevant Liability was caused or contributed to by the actions (or inactions) of the other party...
The Netflix service and/or some of the Netflix content may not be available at any time as a result of events beyond our reasonable control...we will not be held liable should such events occur.
"American is not liable for any special, incidental, or consequential damages arising from the performance of transportation under these Conditions of Carriage, including but not limited to loss of business or profits.Excerpt from American Airlines's Terms of Use
(1) REGULATORY LANDSCAPE: Consequential damages limitations in airline contracts of carriage are standard in the U.S.
Enforcement risk, jurisdiction flags, contract triggers, and due diligence action items.
Get the research letter
Companies change their terms quietly. We read every version and catch what actually changed. One email a week on the changes that matter and what they mean.
This provision limits passenger recovery to direct damages only, excluding business losses, missed connections with independent consequences, and other downstream financial impacts. The enforceability of this limitation may vary by jurisdiction and route type, particularly for international carriage governed by the Montreal Convention.
Under this clause, passengers are limited to recovering direct costs related to a service failure; claims for lost business income, missed events, or other downstream financial consequences are excluded from American's stated liability. The enforceability of this exclusion on international routes may be subject to Montreal Convention provisions, which may interact with this limitation.
ConductAtlas has identified this type of provision across 287 platforms. See the full comparison.
No. ConductAtlas is an independent monitoring service. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by American Airlines.