Air Canada work stoppage averted after tentative deal with pilots
Roughly 110,000 travellers a day could have been impacted, with some already making backup plans
Passengers with plans to fly on Canada's largest airline can breathe a sigh of relief after Air Canada said Sunday it has reached a tentative agreement with the union representing more than 5,400 of its pilots.
The airline says Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge will continue to operate as normal, and the new four-year contract "recognizes the contributions and professionalism" of its pilots.
A ratification vote by the membership is expected to be conducted over the next month, and Air Canada's board of directors would sign off on any deal.
"Customers who used the airline's labour disruption goodwill policy to change their flights originally scheduled from between Sept. 15 and Sept. 23, 2024, to another date before Nov. 30, 2024, can change their booking back to their original flight in the same cabin at no cost, providing there is space available," the company said in its statement that exuded confidence the deal will be approved.
An executive summary of the tentative deal was posted on the strike site created by the union Sunday, revealing that under the deal, the airline's pilots would receive a four-year cumulative pay rate increase of approximately 41.7 per cent.
As for whether higher pay for pilots means higher prices for consumers, only "a small amount" of a plane ticket's cost goes toward a pilot's wages, said first officer Charlene Hudy, chair of the Air Canada ALPA master executive council, in an interview with CBC News last week.
"You're looking at maybe six seats in an airplane that actually go toward the pilot's salary out of an entire airplane of about 200 seats. We're asking for a fraction of that to be reinvested into the pilot group," she said.
Talks down to the wire
The countdown was on for Air Canada and its pilots to reach a deal, as both sides would have been in a position to issue a 72-hour notice of a strike or lockout at 12:01 a.m. on Sunday. The airline had said the notice would have triggered its three-day wind-down plan, starting the clock on a full work stoppage as early as Wednesday.
In the days leading up to the deadline, both the company and the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) said they remained far apart on the central question of pay.
"Air Canada has been bargaining in good faith with ALPA for 15 months, meeting more than 100 times, and we remain engaged with the union," the airline said in a statement earlier on Saturday.
Before news of a deal, the airline had said it offered salary increases of more than 30 per cent over four years, plus improvements to benefits, and said the union was being inflexible with "unreasonable wage demands."
The pilots' union argued Air Canada continues to post record profits while expecting pilots to accept below-market compensation. It had also said about a quarter of pilots report taking on second jobs, with about 80 per cent of those doing so out of necessity.
On Sunday, ALPA released a statement saying the tentative agreement would generate an additional $1.9 billion of value for Air Canada pilots over the four-year deal.
"After several consecutive weeks of intense round-the-clock negotiations, progress was made on several key issues including compensation, retirement and work rules," said Hudy. "This agreement, if ratified by the pilot group, would officially put an end to our outdated and stale decade-old ... framework."
Air Canada and its low-cost subsidiary, Air Canada Rouge, together operate nearly 670 flights per day. A shutdown would have affected some 110,000 travellers a day, with some already making contingency plans.
Many travellers made backup plans
Margaret Shapiro of Pender Island, B.C., told CBC News that due to the uncertainty surrounding a strike, she had "no option" but to book flights with a different airline as "an insurance policy."
"It's costing me $400 more than my original Air Canada tickets," she said, adding her new Alaska Airlines flight has a layover in Seattle, whereas the original flight she booked was direct.
Shapiro's Las Vegas trip is the latest biannual excursion with a group of six friends from university, now all in their 70s, who have known each other for decades. "We are seniors on fixed incomes, so it's no small deal for us," Shapiro said.
Erik Jensen of New Westminster, B.C., meanwhile, wanted to make backup plans but said the lack of communication from Air Canada made it difficult.
Originally set to leave for a family reunion in Denmark on Sept. 16, Jensen and his family "took the initiative" to bump up their departure date with Air Canada in order to avoid the possible strike.
However, their rebooked tickets were cancelled multiple times without warning, and efforts to contact Air Canada to demand answers were a "roller coaster," often involving hours on hold and being passed around from agent to agent, he said.
"The biggest thing is [Air Canada] didn't give us communication about the fact that any of these flights were cancelled," Jensen told CBC News, noting he had to rebook tickets four times, along with peripheral reservations like hotels and travel arrangements in Denmark.
"In a word, it was a clusterf--k."
Jensen said that, as of now, Air Canada has booked a Vancouver-to-Montreal flight for his family on Sunday morning, with a connecting Montreal-to-Copenhagen Lufthansa flight. He also asked if the airline could offer them something for their trouble following the ordeal.
"They offered nothing. We had to wrangle and argue with them and finally managed to get a 15 per cent discount off our next flight. Peanuts, considering what we've gone through."
Cargo impacted
The ongoing contract dispute was having an impact on cargo. Air Canada stopped accepting certain cargo items, such as live animals and perishables, affecting seafood exports from Atlantic Canada to Europe and the United States, said Duncan Dee, former chief operating officer at the airline.
Dee said Air Canada would have had to start cancelling long-haul flights this weekend to ensure its planes are not overseas if a work stoppage would have gone ahead.
Air Canada on Thursday called for the federal government to be ready to intervene and order both sides to binding arbitration. But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday said he wouldn't tip the scales toward either party.
Trudeau said the government isn't just going to step in and fix the issue, something it did promptly after both of Canada's major railways saw lockouts in August.
"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," Trudeau said at an event in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Que.
Negotiated agreements are always the best way forward.<br><br>My statement on the tentative agreement between Air Canada and ALPA: <a href="https://t.co/CPmlbtwbTZ">pic.twitter.com/CPmlbtwbTZ</a>
—@stevenmackinnon"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."
He said the government respects the right to strike and would have only intervened if it became clear no negotiated agreement was possible.
The Air Canada deal comes just months after WestJet mechanics went on strike for two days in July — a situation Dee called a "black eye" for the Canadian airline industry.
A second strike, he said, would have shown the industry can't be relied upon.
"There has to be a better way to manage these disputes," Dee said. "Holding Canadian air travellers and Canadian shippers hostage is not the right way."
With files from CBC News and The Canadian Press