Airlines face new liability risks from AI and greenwashing, IATA says

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) will hold the 2026 edition of the World Legal Symposium (WLS) from February 17 to 19 in Warsaw, Poland, with the event hosted by LOT Polish Airlines under the theme ‘Liability in a Changing World’.

Set against an increasingly complex operating environment, the symposium will focus on both long-standing airline liability exposures and a growing range of newer compliance challenges.

These include environmental, social and governance obligations, greenwashing risks, taxation, data privacy and the legal implications of artificial intelligence.

At the same time, discussions will take place against a broader backdrop of shifting consumer protection regimes, evolving trade tariffs and heightened geopolitical uncertainty, all of which continue to reshape the legal landscape for global aviation.

In this context, IATA’s Corporate Secretary and Acting General Counsel Leslie MacIntosh said that “internationally agreed airline liability principles are coming under pressure from diverging national measures, warning that such fragmentation risks undermining the uniform application of international liability treaties and the connectivity benefits they support.”

She added that the challenges created for airlines, which must navigate these inconsistencies to sustain global operations, will be at the heart of discussions at this year’s WLS.

Meanwhile, LOT Polish Airlines President and Chief Executive Officer Michal Fijol pointed to the growing strategic challenges facing airline operations, noting that new regulations, emerging technologies and evolving societal expectations are reshaping the sector.

Against this backdrop, he said that “as Poland’s national carrier, LOT is pleased to host an event that brings together leading aviation law experts, regulators and industry representatives to jointly identify and address the complexities ahead.”

Turning to the programme itself, the WLS will feature sessions examining a range of legal and regulatory issues affecting the industry.

These include managing geopolitical exposures linked to trade, tariffs, sanctions and insurance, as well as evolving approaches to consumer protection under what organisers describe as “Consumer Protection 2.0”.

Other sessions will focus on artificial intelligence and competition law, alongside the shifting boundaries of freight forwarder liability, tracing its evolution from carrier’s agent to shipper and, increasingly, shipper’s agent.

The symposium will open with a welcome speech and keynote address by LOT Polish Airlines President and CEO Michal Fijol, marking the start of three days of discussions on how airline liability frameworks are adapting to a rapidly changing global environment.

Moreover, MacIntosh said that “the programme and speakers we have lined up for WLS 2026 continue a long tradition of addressing the most pressing issues for the aviation legal community”.

By gathering “in-house experts, private practitioners, and government legal advisers”, she added, WLS is “a unique opportunity for a professional dialogue that unpacks aviation law’s most relevant issues so that we are all better prepared to more effectively mitigate evolving risks”.