• Chargebacks911, a global leader in dispute resolution and chargeback prevention, is warning airlines and travel merchants that America’s airport crisis is already triggering a wave of payment disputes and the worst is still to come.
• With TSA security wait times exceeding four hours at major hubs and more than 480 officers having resigned since the partial government shutdown began, passengers across the country are missing flights they have paid for. And when a flight is missed, a chargeback is rarely far behind.

Approximately 50,000 TSA employees are working without pay, and absenteeism has surged well above normal levels, exceeding 10% nationally and reaching as high as 30 to 50% at major airport hubs. At some locations, more than 40% of scheduled staff have called out, severely limiting screening capacity.

“Every major travel disruption event has been followed by a spike in payment disputes,” said Monica Eaton, Founder and CEO of Chargebacks911. “We’ve seen this pattern before, from Covid-related cancellations to volcanic ash disruption and widespread industrial action. When passengers miss flights through no fault of their own and there is no clear path to resolution, they look for the quickest and easiest route to recover their money. Increasingly, that means turning directly to their bank. Merchants that are not preparing now risk being caught off guard.”

The underlying issue is a lack of clarity around liability. Airlines typically treat security delays as outside their operational control, while passengers still expect reimbursement when travel plans are disrupted. Travel insurance policies also do not consistently cover these types of scenarios. The result is a gap in accountability that often leads consumers to file disputes with their card issuer.

This is also hitting at the worst possible moment. Airlines for America projects 171 million passengers will fly between March and April, averaging 2.8 million per day. At that volume, even a modest rise in missed flights translates into a significant wave of disputed transactions.

The US situation is also part of a broader global trend. Travel disruption is increasing across multiple regions, including ongoing air traffic control strikes in Europe, airspace restrictions affecting routes through the Middle East, and continued operational pressures across international travel networks. The UK’s Foreign Office has also issued travel warnings citing US airport delays. For merchants operating globally, overlapping disruption events significantly increase exposure to disputes.

“Liability ambiguity is one of the biggest drivers of illegitimate chargebacks,” Eaton added. “When consumers do not know who is responsible, they often bypass formal claims processes and go straight to their bank. That is when disputes escalate quickly.”

Chargebacks911 is urging airlines, online travel agencies, and travel providers to act before the dispute notices arrive. Refund and cancellation policies should be reviewed for clarity, affected passengers contacted proactively, and customer interactions documented carefully. Merchants that move quickly on all three will be significantly better placed when the dispute wave lands.

Chargebacks911’s Unified Dispute Management System (UDMS), together with ResolveLab, uses AI and machine learning to give merchants real-time visibility into emerging dispute trends and help them respond faster and more effectively. By combining transaction data, customer interactions, and dispute activity in one place, merchants can better understand performance, prioritize cases, and take action earlier, improving recovery rates while reducing manual workload.

“The window to get ahead of this is short. Dispute volumes don’t spike the moment a flight is missed, they build over days and weeks as passengers exhaust other options. Merchants that are watching their data now and communicating clearly with customers will recover far more of that revenue than those waiting for the dispute notices to arrive,” Eaton said.

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