At a glance
- Company
- Air CanadaAirline
- Industry
- E-commerce and retail Any company that sells online and answers customers with a chatbot faces the same question.
- Where and when
- Canada (British Columbia). November 2022 – February 2024.
- Who produced the figures
- Court or tribunal recordEverything on this page comes from the tribunal’s published reasons for decision.
What happened
In November 2022 a customer needed to fly at short notice after a death in the family. He asked the chatbot on Air Canada’s website about reduced fares for bereavement. The chatbot said he could buy a ticket and apply for the reduced fare within 90 days.
That was wrong. Air Canada’s policy, on another page of the same website, did not allow claims after travel. The customer bought full-price tickets, applied, and was refused.
The numbers
All amounts are in Canadian dollars.
- $1,630.36: what the customer paid for two flights.
- $650.88: the damages the tribunal awarded. This was the difference from the reduced fare, with taxes and fees.
- $812.02: the total Air Canada was ordered to pay, with interest and tribunal fees.
- About three months: the time the customer spent writing to the airline before it admitted the chatbot had used “misleading words”.
What the tribunal said
Air Canada argued that it could not be held liable for information given by its chatbot. The tribunal called this “a remarkable submission”. It found that a chatbot is part of the company’s website, and that the company is responsible for all the information on its website. In the tribunal’s words, it makes no difference whether the information comes from “a static page or a chatbot”.
It also found that Air Canada “did not take reasonable care to ensure its chatbot was accurate”.
The decision comes from a small-claims tribunal in one Canadian province. It notes that Air Canada gave no information about how its chatbot worked.
What the case shows
- The company answered for its chatbot. Pointing to the correct page elsewhere on the site did not help. Customers are not expected to double-check one part of a website against another.
- The sum was small. The cost was not. The airline spent months on a dispute over a few hundred dollars and lost in public.
- Someone must own what the chatbot says. Its answers have to match current policy, and someone has to keep them matched when policy changes.
What this says about the practices
Practices that were missing
- Name one accountable AI owner The chatbot’s answer contradicted the airline’s own policy page. The tribunal found Air Canada “did not take reasonable care to ensure its chatbot was accurate”. Do first · Effort: low (days, one person)
- Budget for the work AI creates Keeping a chatbot’s answers in line with current policy is ongoing work. Here it was not done, and a dispute over a few hundred dollars ran for months. Do first · Effort: low (days, one person)
- Know the rules that already apply to your AI use The airline argued it was not liable for what its chatbot said. The tribunal held that a company answers for everything on its website. Do first · Effort: low (days, one person)
- Keep a person checking anything that goes to a customer or carries legal weight The tribunal found the airline “did not take reasonable care to ensure its chatbot was accurate”. Do first · Effort: medium (weeks, a few people)
- When AI output goes wrong, correct it fast and in the open The customer wrote to the airline for about three months before it admitted the chatbot had used “misleading words”. Do next · Effort: low (days, one person)
Sources
- Moffatt v. Air Canada, 2024 BCCRT 149. Reasons for decision, 14 February 2024. British Columbia Civil Resolution Tribunal. decisions.civilresolutionbc.ca