It seems the passenger had been flying Hong Kong – Okinawa on HK Express as a Cathay Pacific codeshare (UO842 / CX5842) as Typhoon Jangmi approached Japan, causing cancellations.

Here’s the rest of the chat. This looks like AI agent-assist prompt leakage, rather than the AI itself responding which is what most people seem to think.

This looks more like a human customer service agent using an internal “co-pilot” tool to write replies, and pasted their instructions into the customer WhatsApp channel instead of giving an actual response. When you see “Hi, co-pilot” and “when I say better…” this looks less like a system prompt and more like an instruction for an AI writing assistant.

• What’s awkward is that tool was being used to manufacture empathy: “acknowledge feelings,” “use I statements,” “positive tone,” “validating their reason.” The airline’s live human is looking to the ghost in the machine to create human emotional connection.
• And they’re doing this when what the customer needs is a concrete rebooking option. The instruction is focused on sounding empathetic, not resolving the problem, which seems like what AI is actually useful for.
• Even if a human sent it, they didn’t read it first. AI can make us faster and more efficient, but also more careless.
• Seeing the machine instruction behind the empathy causes the resulting message to fall flat. We respond to human emotion as though it’s genuine, but once it’s revealed to be manufactured it loses all force.

Cathay has promoted Microsoft Copilot adoption internally, with the usual pablum about “humans remain in the driving seat.” That’s why I think the framing of “Hi, co-pilot” makes sense that this was a drafting tool copy/paste. And everyone knows that co-pilot is terrible.

Airlines have been working on automated chatbots for decades. The first one I remember was Alaska’s Jenn which launched in 2008 to answer common questions. I never found it especially useful, but it could direct you to information that was otherwise available online. It was more ‘Ask Jeeves’ (phrase your queries in natural language) than AI.

Since then airlines have moved from FAQ bot to something closer to AI for both automated rebooking and agent assistance. American Airlines was explicit about use of AI in automated rebookings.

These chatbots seem to be mostly fine for getting basic information in the Jenn sense of taking natural language queries, searching for answers in a database, and returning simple responses to passengers. They’re not yet there for handling exception cases and acting as a true agent. It seems like the Frontier models are capable of this, but the actual airline implementations fall short. Are their tech teams just unable to work with top products? Or unwilling to spend the tokens (the best AI may be more expensive than offshored agents)?

Two years ago Air Canada was held liable for the bad information its chatbot gave out. The airline argued they weren’t responsible for it, but that didn’t fly. Of course, airline human agents give out bad information all the time. Getting call center recordings is very tough and they’re rarely held to account.

Credits: Cathay Pacific

The post Airlines Are Using AI To Manufacture Empathy Instead Of Solving Problems — One Passenger Was Sent The Prompt By Mistake first appeared on AircrewNews.com.

An uptick in tourists and a decline in the working-age population are causing a labor crisis and thus an increased workload for some 4,000 current ground-handling staff employed by the airline, JL told the BBC News portal. 

The Japan National Tourism Organization reported over seven million visitors to Japan in the first two months of 2026, while last year, an all-time high of 42.7 million visitors were recorded. 

“While airports appear highly automated and standardized, their back-end operations still rely heavily on human labor and face serious labor shortages,” said GMO AI & Robotics’ president, Tomohiro Uchida.

Multi-year trial project

JAL’s subsidiary, in cooperation with GMO AI & Robotics, will lead a two-year project to reduce pressure on staff and address labor shortages in Japan.

The phased test, starting in May, will first assess robots’ capability to safely operate at airports’ sites and later move to repeated operational checks to mirror real airport environment conditions.

Initially, robots will be used to load and unload cargo containers. The Japanese flag carrier hopes to expand the range of duties robots can perform, including cabin cleaning and operating ground support equipment in the future. 

Using robots for physical tasks will “inevitably reduce the burden on workers and provide significant benefits to employees,” said Yoshiteru Suzuk, the president of JAL’s Ground Service, to Kyodo news agency. He added that certain responsibilities, including safety management, would remain the responsibility of human workers. 

Humanoid robots are already being used across different airports in Japan for various tasks, including security patrol and retail. 

First public demonstration

On Monday, the first media demonstration took place where Chinese-made robots, described as 130 cm tall and manufactured by Hangzhou-based Unitree, were seen carrying out work near the aircraft – pushing cargo on a conveyor belt and waving, reported news portal Guardian.

Companies explained that fixed automated systems and single-purpose robots “have had difficulty adapting flexibly to these existing infrastructures and complex operational workflows.” In contrast, humanoid robots can operate in existing airport facilities and aircraft layouts “without significant modifications.”

Credits: Japan Airlines

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