{"id":150471,"date":"2025-08-16T12:25:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T12:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/150471\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T12:25:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T12:25:09","slug":"air-canada-suspends-operations-as-flight-attendants-go-on-strike-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/150471\/","title":{"rendered":"Air Canada suspends operations as flight attendants go on strike"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO — Air Canada suspended all operations as more than 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants went on strike early Saturday after a deadline to reach a deal passed, leaving travelers around the world stranded and scrambling during the peak summer travel season.<\/p>\n

Canadian Union of Public Employees spokesman Hugh Pouliot confirmed the strike has started after no deal was reached, and the airline said shortly after that it would halt operations.<\/p>\n

A bitter contract fight between Canada\u2019s largest airline and the union representing 10,000 of its flight attendants escalated Friday as the union turned down the airline\u2019s request to enter into government-directed arbitration, which would eliminate its right to strike and allow a third-party mediator to decide the terms of a new contract.<\/p>\n

Flight attendants walked off the job around 1 a.m. EDT on Saturday. Around the same time, Air Canada said it would begin locking flight attendants out of airports. <\/p>\n

Federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu met with both the airline and union on Friday night and urged them to work harder to them to reach a deal \u201conce and for all.”<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is unacceptable that such little progress has been made. Canadians are counting on both parties to put forward their best efforts,\u201d Hajdu said in a statement posted on social media.<\/p>\n

Pouliot, the spokesman for the union, earlier said the union had a meeting with Hajdu and representatives from Air Canada earlier Friday evening.<\/p>\n

\u201cCUPE has engaged with the mediator to relay our willingness to continue bargaining \u2014 despite the fact that Air Canada has not countered our last two offers since Tuesday,\u201d he said in a email. \u201cWe\u2019re here to bargain a deal, not to go on strike.\u201d<\/p>\n

A complete shutdown will impact about 130,000 people a day<\/a>, and some 25,000 Canadians a day may be stranded abroad. Air Canada operates around 700 flights per day.<\/p>\n

Montreal resident Alex Laroche, 21, and his girlfriend had been saving since Christmas for their European vacation. Now their $8,000 trip with nonrefundable lodging is on the line as they wait to hear from Air Canada about the fate of their Saturday night flight to Nice, France.<\/p>\n

How long the airline\u2019s planes will be grounded remains to be seen, but Air Canada Chief Operating Officer Mark Nasr has said it could take up to a week to fully restart operations once a tentative deal is reached.<\/p>\n

Passengers whose travel is impacted will be eligible to request a full refund on the airline\u2019s website or mobile app, according to Air Canada.<\/p>\n

The airline said it would also offer alternative travel options through other Canadian and foreign airlines when possible. But it warned that it could not guarantee immediate rebooking because flights on other airlines are already full \u201cdue to the summer travel peak.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laroche said he considered booking new flights with a different carrier, but he said most of them are nearly full and cost more than double the $3,000 they paid for their original tickets.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point, it\u2019s just a waiting game,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Laroche said he was initially upset over the union\u2019s decision to go on strike, but that he had a change of heart after reading about the key issues at the center of the contract negotiations, including the issue of wages.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir wage is barely livable,\u201d Laroche said.<\/p>\n

Air Canada and the Canadian Union of Public Employees have been in contract talks for about eight months, but they have yet to reach a tentative deal.<\/p>\n

Both sides say they remain far apart on the issue of pay and the unpaid work flight attendants do when planes aren\u2019t in the air.<\/p>\n

The airline\u2019s latest offer included a 38% increase in total compensation, including benefits and pensions over four years, that it said \u201cwould have made our flight attendants the best compensated in Canada.\u201d <\/p>\n

But the union pushed back, saying the proposed 8% raise in the first year didn\u2019t go far enough because of inflation. ___<\/p>\n

Associated Press airlines writer Rio Yamat reported from Las Vegas. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO — Air Canada suspended all operations as more than 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants went on strike…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":150472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[88418,166,347,64,38508,57,24963,1607,67,132,68,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-150471","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-88418","9":"tag-aerospace-and-defense-industry","10":"tag-article","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-compensation-and-benefits","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-labor-unions","15":"tag-strikes","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115038435727175500","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}