Strikes in the Skies: Air Canada Grounds Passengers, Not Its Union

Heads up: There’s a fresh update on the Air Canada saga: catch it here.

Air Canada might have played it's hand by announcing flights to restart, but its 10,000-strong cabin crew isn’t ready to fold their strike cards just yet. The stakes have risen as Air Canada’s cabin crew walked off the job in the middle of an eight-month contract deadlock. The result? About 130,000 passengers were left stranded per day and nearly 700 daily flights left in limbo. The empty bag-drop counters at Montreal–Trudeau painted the picture of just how disruptive the strike has been.

Just hours after the strike began, Canada’s Federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu ordered attendants back to work, warning that this was not the time to gamble with the economy, especially with the U.S. tightening tariffs. If this strike was poker then the minister just matched the stakes with this case quickly being pushed to the Canada Industrial Relations Board. Were there any results ? Yes, the Air Canada’s existing contract got extended until arbitration decided the new one. That's a corporate and lowkey nice way of saying "Keep flying now, fight later.”

Since the union members weren't born yesterday, they saw right past through the vague attempt of settling. Leaders from the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) flatly and rightly rejected the order. With pay failing to keep pace with inflation, it’s no surprise that the union is ready to take Air Canada to court, any expectation otherwise honestly seems wishful thinking on the airline’s part. There are more complaints about flight attendants not being fairly compensated for the hours they put in when the aircraft is on the ground. That’s a lot of unpaid safety demos, boarding chaos, and gate stress they say shouldn’t come free. Weird how you need to remind big corporations constantly that people are working, not volunteering.

Air Canada, on the other hand offered a 38% bump in total compensation over four years. The airline argues this package would make its attendants the most well-compensated in Canada. Sure, Air Canada can argue all it wants, but the union is pushing back, calling the 38% package a classic bait and switch: flashy headline numbers hiding just an 8% raise in year one. If the airline really expects just 8% to cut it in today’s inflation-heavy reality then it just goes to show how out of touch these corporations are.

To no one's surprise, there is no deal in sight and passengers are left refreshing apps, scrambling for refunds. By Saturday afternoon, Air Canada had already canceled 671 flights (on top of 199 Friday), with another 96 Sunday flights axed before they even had a chance to board. Yikes. These numbers are only going to head north if they don't reach a truce. The real question is: what card will Air Canada play next?”