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An Air Canada agent, left, talks with a person as Air Canada flight attendants strike at Montreal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau Worldwide Airport in Montreal, Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025.
Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press/AP
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Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press/AP
TORONTO — Air Canada stated it suspended plans to restart operations on Sunday after the union representing 10,000 flight attendants stated it’s going to defy a return to work order. The strike was already affecting about 130,000 vacationers around the globe per day in the course of the peak summer time journey season.
The Canada Industrial Relations Board ordered airline employees again to work by 2 p.m. Sunday after the federal government intervened and Air Canada stated it deliberate to renew flights Sunday night.
Canada’s largest airline now says it’s going to resume flights Monday night. Air Canada stated in an announcement that the union “illegally directed its flight attendant members to defy a path from the Canadian Industrial Relations Board.”
“Our members usually are not going again to work,” Canadian Union of Public Staff nationwide president Mark Hancock stated outdoors Toronto’s Pearson Worldwide Airport. “We’re saying no.”
The federal authorities did not instantly present touch upon the union refusing to return to work.
Hancock stated the “entire course of has been unfair” and stated the union will problem what it referred to as an unconstitutional order.
“Air Canada has actually refused to cut price with us and so they refused to cut price with us as a result of they knew this authorities would are available in on their white horse and try to save the day,” he stated.
The nation’s largest airline had stated early Sunday in a launch that the primary flights would resume later within the day however that it’ll take a number of days earlier than its operations return to regular. It stated some flights will likely be canceled over the following seven to 10 days till the schedule is stabilized.
Lower than 12 hours after employees walked off the job, Federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu ordered the ten,000 flight attendants again to work, saying now is just not the time to take dangers with the economic system and noting the unprecedented tariffs the U.S. has imposed on Canada. Hajdu referred the work stoppage to the Canada Industrial Relations Board.
The airline stated the CIRB has prolonged the time period of the prevailing collective settlement till a brand new one is set by the arbitrator.
The shutdown of Canada’s largest airline early Saturday was impacting about 130,000 individuals a day. Air Canada operates round 700 flights per day.
Flight attendants walked off the job round 1 a.m. EDT on Saturday. Across the similar time, Air Canada stated it could start locking flight attendants out of airports.
The bitter contract struggle escalated Friday because the union turned down Air Canada’s prior request to enter into government-directed arbitration, which permits a third-party mediator to resolve the phrases of a brand new contract.
Final yr, the federal government compelled the nation’s two main railroads into arbitration with their labor union throughout a piece stoppage. The union for the rail employees is suing, arguing the federal government is eradicating a union’s leverage in negotiations.
The Enterprise Council of Canada had urged the federal government to impose binding arbitration on this case, too. And the Canadian Chamber of Commerce welcomed the intervention.
Hajdu maintained that her Liberal authorities is just not anti-union, saying it’s clear the 2 sides are at an deadlock.
Passengers whose flights are impacted will likely be eligible to request a full refund on the airline’s web site or cellular app, in keeping with Air Canada.
The airline stated it could additionally provide various journey choices by way of different Canadian and international airways when potential. Nonetheless, it warned that it couldn’t assure quick rebooking as a result of flights on different airways are already full “as a result of summer time journey peak.”
Air Canada and CUPE have been in contract talks for about eight months, however they’ve but to succeed in a tentative deal. Each side have stated they continue to be far aside on the difficulty of pay and the unpaid work flight attendants do when planes aren’t within the air.
The airline’s newest provide included a 38% improve in whole compensation, together with advantages and pensions, over 4 years, that it stated “would have made our flight attendants the most effective compensated in Canada.”
However the union pushed again, saying the proposed 8% increase within the first yr did not go far sufficient due to inflation.
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