In November 2022, a passenger in Vancouver learned that their grandmother had died in Ontario. That same day they went to Air Canada’s website to book a flight, and asked the site’s chatbot about bereavement fares.
The chatbot was clear. If you have to travel right away, it said, buy your ticket now and apply for the reduced rate afterward, “within 90 days of the date your ticket was issued.”
So they did. They bought two full-price tickets, Vancouver to Toronto and back, for more than C$1,600 in all, and filed for the bereavement discount a few days later, well inside the 90 days.
Air Canada said no. Its real policy, on a separate page that the chatbot’s own answer linked to, did not allow claims after travel. Months later, shown a screenshot of the chat, an Air Canada representative admitted the bot had used “misleading words” and said the company would update it. There was still no refund.
The passenger took the case to British Columbia’s Civil Resolution Tribunal, which handles small claims. There, Air Canada argued that it could not be held liable for information given by its agents, servants or representatives, a chatbot included.
Tribunal member Christopher Rivers read this as treating the chatbot like a separate legal entity, responsible for its own actions, and rejected it. A chatbot, the decision reasoned, is still just part of the airline’s website, no different from a static page. “It should be obvious to Air Canada that it is responsible for all the information on its website.”
Air Canada also pointed out that the correct rule had been on the linked page all along. The tribunal saw no reason a customer should trust one page of the airline’s site more than another, or have to check one against the other.
Air Canada was ordered to pay C$812.02: the difference in fare, plus interest and fees. It had earlier offered a C$200 coupon as a goodwill gesture. The passenger had turned it down.