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Air Canada has apologised after a passenger discovered that some of its aircraft displayed maps labelling the region of Israel as the "Palestinian territories". The issue, affecting 40 Boeing 737 MAX planes, stemmed from a third-party map provider.
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New Delhi,UPDATED: Mar 17, 2025 16:40 IST
Canadian airline Air Canada has issued an apology after it was discovered that some of its aircraft did not display Israel as a state on their in-flight entertainment maps. Instead, the maps on the airline’s Boeing 737 MAX fleet labelled the region as the “Palestinian territories", according to a news report by CNN.
According to the report, a passenger spotted the issue and reported it to the airline, which later confirmed that the erroneous maps were present on 40 of its aircraft. Air Canada’s in-flight entertainment systems are manufactured by the French aerospace company Thales, but the map itself was created by an undisclosed third-party provider.
In response, both Air Canada and Thales issued a joint statement on Thursday, apologising for the mistake and confirming that it had been rectified.
"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," the statement read.
"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 disabled the map function on affected planes, and by Friday, a revised version had been installed.
Published By:
Meghna Barik
Published On:
Mar 17, 2025
