Air Canada has issued an apology after some of its planes did not display Israel as a state on the in-flight entertainment (IFE) systems. The Canadian airline's Boeing 737 MAX fleet replaced Israel with the name "Palestinian Territories" amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, according to a report in CNN.
The anomaly was first noticed by a passenger who reported it to the airline. As per the carrier, 40 of its planes had faulty maps which have since been disabled as they are updated. Thales had produced the IFE in question but the map itself had been procured from a third-party company, the French aerospace group said.
“It was brought to the attention of Air Canada that the interactive map on its Boeing 737 fleet did not consistently portray certain Middle Eastern boundaries, including those of the State of Israel, at all amplification levels,” read a joint statement by Air Canada and Thales.
“Air Canada's policy in general is to display only city names on the maps in its aircraft, and the configuration on this particular system was not compliant with this policy.”
The airline has been working with Thales and the map provider to reprogram the planes and it is expected to be installed in the fleet soon.
“Thales is working closely with the airline and the involved third-party to remediate this regrettable issue as soon possible."
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Previous instance
This is not the first instance when an airline has been forced to issue an apology, owing to faulty maps. In 2024, JetBlue apologised after Israel was mistakenly labelled as the Palestinian Territories.
"We're sorry for the concern this has caused. We can assure you that no one on the JetBlue team was involved with drawing or labeling the map of the region, and we were not previously aware of the issue."
The airline added it was switching to another moving map provider, and had asked the old one to “adjust the map".
