Air Canada says some operations will start to be affected as time is running out before a potential shutdown due to a labour dispute with its pilots, but the airline noted it hadn’t cancelled any flights on Friday in anticipation of a strike.
“At this point, we have not cancelled any flights for today due to the disruption. In the event there are, customers will be notified if there are any changes to their travel,” a spokesperson for the airline told CBC News.
“There have been a small number of cancellations today, but these are unrelated to the disruption and due to other issues such as maintenance.”
The spokesperson said the situation is evolving, noting that Air Canada has stopped accepting certain cargo items, including live animals and perishables. Some services like vacation packages will start to be affected on Friday, while a full shutdown could happen on Sept. 18.
The airline on Thursday called for the federal government to be ready to intervene to avoid major disruptions that a shutdown would cause for its more than 110,000 travellers a day.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Friday it’s up to Air Canada and the union representing its pilots to reach an agreement to avoid disrupting travellers and businesses.
Speaking at an event in Saint-Anne-de-Bellevue, Que., Trudeau said he wouldn’t tip the scales toward either party, while dodging the question of whether he would force pilots back to work.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he’s ‘not going to put my thumb on the scale’ on either side as Air Canada and the pilots’ union try to reach an agreement in an ongoing contract dispute.
“I know every time there’s a strike, people say, ‘Oh, you’ll get the government to come in and fix it.’ We’re not going to do that,” said Trudeau.
“We have and we will protect the Canadian economy. But first and foremost is putting all the pressure on the people who need to feel that pressure — unions and the employers.”
Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Friday that he’d spoken with his provincial counterparts, union leaders and industry partners “who all want to see Air Canada and ALPA reach a deal at the bargaining table.”
“There’s no reason why these parties can’t get a deal done here,” he wrote.
The airline and pilots will be in a position starting Sunday to issue 72-hour notice of a strike or lockout. The airline has said the notice would trigger its three-day wind-down plan and start the clock on a full work stoppage.
Air Canada says the union is being inflexible with “unreasonable wage demands.”
The union has said corporate greed is holding up talks, as Air Canada continues to post record profits while expecting pilots to accept below-market compensation.
Travellers anxious about flights
As the clock ticks ever closer to the deadline, several Air Canada passengers have shared their concerns with CBC News.
Christine Renaud, who lives in Prince Edward County, Ont., recently travelled to St. John’s to hike the East Coast Trail, a scenic trail that runs through Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula.
Having already hiked to the trail’s northern end, she planned to hike back down to the trail’s southernmost tip and fly back on Sept. 20.
Instead, she’s cutting the hike short and leaving town early to avoid a potential cancellation. “I do have to get back for work, so I just bit the bullet,” Renaud told CBC News.
“To be honest, it is frustrating … I really loved this hike so much, and I love St. John’s and Newfoundland and the people — everything about it. So I was very disappointed,” she said.
CBC’s Linda Ward looks at what travellers can do if they’ve booked a flight with Air Canada ahead of a possible pilots’ strike.
Renaud, whose son is a WestJet pilot, says she supports the pilots’ right to strike. “Just trying to make lemonade out of lemons,” she said.
Navneet Kaur, a mother of three who lives in Edmonton, said her family had plans to visit India for the first time since she moved to Canada in 2015. The first leg of their trip is booked with Air Canada.
“This trip is especially important, because this is my daughter’s first trip back home,” Kaur said. “She will be meeting her grandparents for the first time. She’s only two and a half years old.”
The flight, scheduled for Sept. 29, is still over two weeks away. But she’s hoping that she’ll hear from Air Canada with enough notice to make alternative arrangements if needed.
Passengers travelling for work also expressed concerns that a potential action would upend their plans.
Musician Amanda Rheaume was planning to fly to Nashville with her five-piece band next week to perform at a festival and showcase their music.
“I’ve become a travel agent in the last couple of days,” she quipped on CBC’s Metro Morning. She said she decided to book alternative flights to mitigate the risk and the stress.
If a strike doesn’t happen, “I’ll probably wish I’d left it, but [now] I know that I’m going to make it. So that’s all that really matters,” she said.
Meanwhile, at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, some passengers who were travelling internationally on Friday said they’d make changes to their flights to avoid overlapping with a potential disruption.
Daniel Chu is travelling to Tokyo for two weeks, and was supposed to fly out on Sunday. When he received an email from Air Canada earlier this week giving him the option to change the flight, he chose to leave earlier than planned.
“It is a bit stressful,” he said. “We had to all get approval from managers to take an extra day off, and then we were just scrambling around because we thought we had an extra two days for packing and whatnot,” he said.
Another traveller who was heading to Japan for a cruise said she changed her flight, originally booked for Sept. 18, three times to avoid disruptions.
“Hopefully we’ll be OK, but I’m glad the flight is going today,” said Mitelia Paul. “I feel really bad for all these people who are going to be left stranded.”
