Air Canada and a union representing the airline’s flight attendants have come to a tentative agreement, ending a days-long strike that canceled thousands of flights and stranded hundreds of thousands of passengers.
“Flight attendants at Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge have reached a tentative agreement, achieving transformational change for our industry after a historic fight to affirm our Charter rights,” said Hugh Pouliot, spokesman for the Canadian Union for Public Employees (CUPE), in a statement Tuesday. “Unpaid work is over. We have reclaimed our voice and our power.”
Union members will need to vote on the agreement to make it permanent. If they vote it down, the strike could resume. The two sides came back to the table Monday night for the first time since the strike began Saturday.
The strike had forced the cancellation of more than 700 flights a day by Air Canada and is Air Canada Rouge subsidiary, according to flight tracking site FlightAware. And many flights may not resume immediately. FlightAware shows more than 500 flights already cancelled for Tuesday, and more than 160 cancelled flights already for Wednesday.
Air Canada’s statement on the tentative labor deal said that “only customers with confirmed bookings whose flights are shown as operating should go to the airport.” The airline also warned Tuesday that it could take a week to 10 days to fully resume its schedule, because “aircraft and crew are out of position.” It began winding down its operations Thursday, two days before the strike was set to take place.
