United Airlines said Thursday it will start sending meal and hotel vouchers for disrupted travel to passengers’ phones, in hopes of avoiding customer service bottlenecks at airports and long hold times at call centers. That means rather than stand in line at a customer service desk or dial up an agent, affected travelers can access their vouchers right on their smartphones through the airline’s app or website. United said the updates will make it easier for travelers to rebook, track bags and retrieve vouchers. “You’re already stressed out,” Linda Jojo, United’s chief customer officer, said in an interview. “We don’t want you to wait in line.” The airline provides food vouchers for flight disruptions of at least three hours caused by the airline, such as a maintenance or technology issue, and hotel vouchers when travelers are forced to stay overnight because of a delay or cancellation caused by the airline, Jojo said. Weather disruptions don’t fit those definitions, she said. Jojo acknowledged that some travelers might not be comfortable with or able to use smartphone technology and the airline’s app. “The more we can help the people who are technically savvy, the more we can take the time to help folks who are not technically savvy,” she said. Customer compensation and benefits during flight disruptions have recently drawn the attention of the Biden administration. The Transportation Department last month said it would seek new rules to require airlines to compensate passengers for delays and cancellations.<br/>
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A Manhattan judge on Thursday imposed a $5,000 fine on two lawyers who gave him a legal brief full of made-up cases and citations, all generated by the artificial intelligence program ChatGPT. The judge, P. Kevin Castel of Federal District Court, criticized the lawyers harshly and ordered them to send a copy of his opinion to each of the real-life judges whose names appeared in the fictitious filing. But Judge Castel wrote that he would not require the lawyers, Steven A. Schwartz and Peter LoDuca, whom he referred to as respondents, to apologize to those judges, “because a compelled apology is not a sincere apology.” “Any decision to apologize is left to respondents,” the judge added. The discovery that ChatGPT had helped create the brief in an otherwise unremarkable lawsuit reverberated throughout the legal profession. The revelation also riveted the tech community, which has been debating the dangers of overreliance on artificial intelligence — even as a existential threat to humanity. In the case involving Schwartz and LoDuca, Judge Castel made it clear they had violated a basic precept of the American legal system. “Many harms flow from the submission of fake opinions,” the judge wrote. “The opposing party wastes time and money in exposing the deception. The court’s time is taken from other important endeavors.” The lawyers’ action, he added, “promotes cynicism about the legal profession and the American judicial system. And a future litigant may be tempted to defy a judicial ruling by disingenuously claiming doubt about its authenticity.” Thursday’s ruling followed a June 8 hearing at which Judge Castel grilled Schwartz and LoDuca about how they came to file the brief. In the suit, their client, Roberto Mata, sought to hold the airline Avianca responsible for an injury he says he sustained when a metal serving cart hit his knee during an August 2019 flight from El Salvador to New York. After Avianca asked to dismiss the suit because the statute of limitations had expired, Schwartz prepared a 10-page brief citing more than a half-dozen court decisions with names like Martinez v. Delta Air Lines, Varghese v. China Southern Airlines and Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines, to argue that the litigation should be allowed to proceed.<br/>
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Thursday suspended licence of an Air India pilot for a term of one year for allowing a female friend in cockpit. Meanwhile, the licence of the first officer has been suspended for a period of one month by the aviation regulator. "The first officer did not raise any concern about the unauthorised entry. Based on DGCA's investigation the following actions have been taken; (1) the pilot license of the PIC has been suspended for a period of one year & (2) The pilot License of the First Officer has been suspended for a period of one month for not being assertive in preventing and non-reporting of the violation," ANI quoted DGCA as saying. Following the incident that took place on June 3, the DGCA ordered grounding of both pilots pending investigation. As per DGCA safety norms, unauthorised people are not allowed to enter the cockpit, and any such entry could violate norms. The DGCA last month slapped a fine of Rs 30 lakh on Air India for not reporting a similar incident that took place on its Dubai-Delhi flight in February this year.<br/>