Air Canada and Alexa Team Up in a Big Way

WHY IT RATES: Travelers flying with Air Canada are now able to retrieve helpful travel information from Alexa.—Codie Richards, TravelPulse Associate Editor

Air Canada is offering customers additional convenience by becoming the first Canadian airline to develop a skill for Amazon's popular voice service, Alexa. Devices with Alexa will use machine learning and artificial intelligence to respond to spoken questions about such things as fare quotes and the status of Air Canada flights.

"Advances in innovative and new technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing have great promise to deliver more convenience for our customers," said Mark Nasr, Vice President of Loyalty and eCommerce at Air Canada.

"We're thrilled to be working with artificial intelligence start-up RozieAI to launch this capability so that customers across Canada can access AC services quickly and simply, using their voice."

Simply by asking, Air Canada customers will be able to obtain useful travel information from their devices with Alexa. The skill developed by Air Canada will initially enable Alexa to tell customers the status of their flight, provide fare quotes and which baggage carousel to go to pick up baggage after a flight, with further topics to be added in the future.

Additionally, Alexa will provide general answers about Air Canada's mobile app, required travel documents, TSA precheck availability and certain ticket policies.

SOURCE: Air Canada press release.