Air Canada was forced by judges to respect a non-existent discount policy, invented by the virtual assistant consulted by a customer. Jake Moffatt was in Vancouver when his grandmother died in November 2022 in Toronto. As soon as she received the news, the woman opened the Air Canada website to book a flight from the capital of British Columbia to the capital of Ontario. The flight, as almost always happens when booking at the last minute, turned out to be very expensive. But Moffatt bought it anyway, aware that Air Canada has a special policy that guarantees bereavement discounts. That would have been enough – he had explained to her chatbots AI-powered automatic support – request a refund within 90 days. This is false information, a hallucination, given that Air Canada regulations explicitly state that bereavement discounts can only be requested and obtained during the booking phase, and not afterwards.
The assistant pushed the woman to buy the flight as soon as possible
But that wasn't what chatbots encouraged Moffatt to do so. In fact, the virtual assistant pushed the woman to buy the flight as quickly as possible. Upon returning from the trip, the woman continued to follow the advice she had been given. chatbots, requesting a refund within the stipulated period of 90 days. After the process was completed, Moffatt was disappointed to receive an email in which an airline employee, this time a real one, explained that she would have to request compensation when booking. For months, Moffatt tried unsuccessfully to convince Air Canada to compensate her, citing as proof the message she received from the virtual assistant: “If you need to travel immediately or if you have already traveled and want to submit your ticket at a bereavement discounted rate, please do so within 90 days of the ticket issue date by completing our ticket refund request form.
The legal entity of the virtual assistant
Air Canada, for its part, argued that, since the response from chatbots was linked elsewhere to a page with the current bereavement travel policy, Moffatt should have checked that. Instead of a refund, the best thing Air Canada would do was promise to upgrade its chatbots and give Moffatt a $200 coupon to use on a future flight. Unsatisfied with the proposal, Moffatt rejected the voucher and filed a “small claims” complaint with the Canadian Civil Resolution Tribunal. The case was thus the subject of a judgment, the airline considering that it was not responsible for the actions of the virtual assistant, the latter being a legal entity in its own right.
Reimbursement
Air Canada also argued that the woman should have relied on what was written on the site, and not what was communicated to her by chatbots. Canadian judges do not see things the same way, according to which there is no reason for a client to evaluate the veracity of two versions of the same information appearing on the same site. So, on February 14, they made their decision. The court ruled that Moffatt was entitled to a partial refund of C$650 of the original fare, which was C$1,640, plus additional damages to cover interest on the airfare and legal costs . Air Canada compensated the woman as expected. But in the meantime, there is no longer any trace of the company's website. chatbots.
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