Air Canada has apologized after discovering that some of its aircraft displayed maps that did not include Israel, instead displaying “Palestinian territory.” The incident occurred on the moving map system of the in-flight entertainment (IFE) system of the Boeing 737 MAX.
The incident was discovered by a passenger and reported to the airline. Air Canada confirmed that this defect appeared on 40 Boeing 737s out of a total of 43 MAX aircraft in the airline's fleet of more than 350 aircraft.
Air Canada is Canada's largest airline and the country's national airline.
The IFE systems on these planes were supplied by French aerospace technology group Thales. In a joint statement to CNN on March 13, Air Canada and Thales said the problem had been fixed.
“The airline has received feedback that the interactive map on Boeing 737 aircraft does not accurately represent the boundaries of some Middle Eastern regions, including Israel, at all levels of display,” the statement said, apologizing for any inconvenience caused. “As a general Air Canada policy, the onboard map only displays city names, and the display on this system does not comply with that.”
Upon discovering the incident, Air Canada temporarily disabled the map feature on the affected aircraft and coordinated with Thales and the map supplier to update the system. The new map version was installed on the fleet from March 14.
In a separate statement, Thales confirmed that the controversial map was provided by a third party. The map displayed on the system was produced by an outside company that cooperated with Thales, but the identity of that company was not disclosed.
Thales claims the controversial map was provided by a third party.
Notably, this incident occurred in the context of the tense situation between Israel and Palestine, with the risk of escalating the conflict and a serious humanitarian crisis. On the night of March 17, the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip was broken when Israel carried out airstrikes across the area, killing more than 320 Palestinians, including many women and children.
This is not the first time that maps on airline entertainment systems have caused sensitive issues with Israeli territory. In 2024, JetBlue also had to apologize after a similar incident. The airline said it had switched to a new map provider and asked the old unit to adjust it to match the map recognized by the US government. Previously, in 2018, SWISS confirmed that it had adopted a policy of turning off the entire map system when the plane was about to land in Tel Aviv (Israel) to avoid related controversies.
This is not the first time that maps on airline entertainment systems have caused sensitive issues with Israeli territory.
