Air Canada announced it will resume flights on Sunday evening after striking flight attendants walked off the job early Saturday morning, causing significant disruptions to air travel. The strike, which began around 1 a.m. EDT, left over 100,000 travelers stranded worldwide during one of the busiest travel seasons of the year. The Canadian government responded with extraordinary decisiveness. It forced both Air Canada and its flight attendants back to work and then ordered arbitration to resolve the long-running gripes.
The result was enough labor action to bring Air Canada and, by extension, about 130,000 daily passengers to a standstill. As lawsuits mounted, the airline’s management was under pressure to move quickly. As they dealt with the new disruption the strike caused, their immediate response was to stabilize flight schedules. They’ve warned of flight cancellations over the next seven to ten days. This comes as frontline operations are still working to return to normal. Travelers should be prepared for significant delays and even cancellations, as the airline works through the challenges of restarting services.
Air Canada had instead brought a contract to the table that offered, at most, a 38% increase in total compensation over four years. This increase is all salary, benefits, and pensions. The airline emphasized that this offer “would have made our flight attendants the best compensated in Canada,” showcasing its commitment to competitive wages and employee satisfaction. That’s on top of the airline’s previous offer to agree to enter government-supervised arbitration — which was flatly turned down by the union for flight attendants.
In light of this strike and the unprecedented government intervention, the Canada Industrial Relations Board has acted to… They’ve taken Air Canada’s current collective agreement and extended it until a new one can be reached via arbitration. This decision is intended to offer the airline and its employees some continued certainty while negotiations continue.
Air Canada has a long-standing commitment to uniting stranded travelers. They will offer travel on other Canadian and foreign airlines as a first option where feasible. The strike has had a tremendous impact. More importantly, it underscores the problems that airlines face when engaged in labor disputes, particularly at busy travel times.
With Air Canada clearly still in the process of stabilizing its operations, travelers should continue to check their flight status regularly. The company has already suspended another 96 flights scheduled for Sunday, throwing an extra layer of uncertainty onto millions of affected travelers.
