Air Canada Resuming Flights, As Flight Attendant Strike Ends

It seems to be like Air Canada shall be steadily resuming flights as of at this time. Hopefully this goes extra easily than Sunday’s failed tried at resuming flights.
Air Canada reaches settlement with flight attendants
Final week, the Canadian Union of Public Staff (CUPE), which represents Air Canada’s roughly 10,000 flight attendants, issued a 72-hour strike warning. Air Canada administration responded by issuing a flight attendant lockout discover, that means that each one Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge flights had been canceled as of Saturday, August 16, 2025.
Given the influence this has on the touring public, the federal government tried to become involved to drive flight attendants to return to work, and to bear binding arbitration. As you’d count on, that angered flight attendants, and the union instructed members to defy the return to work order, and stay on strike.
There’s now an replace — Air Canada has introduced that it’ll steadily restart operations as of at this time, Tuesday, August 19, 2025. The corporate claims that this follows a mediated settlement by way of a course of overseen by a mutually agreed-to mediator.
Mediation discussions started on the idea that the union commits to having flight attendants instantly return to work. The corporate isn’t but commenting on the settlement, and is ready for the ratification course of to be full. Throughout any ratification or beneath the binding arbitration course of, a strike or lockout will not be doable.
Flights are scheduled to renew as of this night, although clients are suggested that it’ll take 7-10 days for operations to return to regular, as plane and crew are out of place. Throughout this course of, some flights shall be canceled, till the schedule is stabilized.
Air Canada is advising solely clients with confirmed bookings for flights which are displaying as working to go to the airport. In the meantime these on canceled flights have the choice of acquiring a full refund or receiving a credit score for a future flight. The corporate will even proceed to ebook clients on different airways.
Right here’s how Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau describes this:
“The suspension of our service is extraordinarily tough for our clients. We deeply remorse and apologize for the influence on them of this labour disruption. Our precedence now’s to get them shifting as shortly as doable. Restarting a serious service like Air Canada is a fancy enterprise. Full restoration could require every week or extra, so we ask for our clients’ endurance and understanding over the approaching days. I guarantee them that everybody at Air Canada is doing all the pieces doable to allow them to journey quickly.”
That is nice information, hopefully all of it works out
Proper now particulars are restricted by way of what the 2 events have agreed to. We all know that the union was against coming into binding arbitration, arguing that it takes away the membership’s skill to vote on a brand new contract.
This is without doubt one of the messier labor settlement conditions we’ve seen at an airline in fairly a while. In whole, the airline absolutely shut down for almost 4 days, and that claims nothing of the as much as 10 days that it’ll take for operations to return to regular.
On condition that the union was so against binding arbitration, I’m curious if union leaders simply didn’t see a approach ahead that might enhance their odds, or in the event that they received some sort of a dedication for additional enhancements. Hopefully this new contract might be ratified quickly, and issues can return to how they had been earlier than.
I’ve to think about that this course of will trigger some dangerous blood between administration and labor that wasn’t there earlier than, and that this may’t be good for morale going ahead.

Backside line
Air Canada shall be steadily resuming operations as of the night of Tuesday, August 19, 2025. This comes as administration and the union representing flight attendants have reportedly reached a mediated settlement, although the main points of that haven’t but been revealed.
Air Canada has been shut down for almost 4 days now, after flight attendants went on strike over a contract dispute, and administration responded with a lockout discover. Whereas the federal government tried to dam the strike inside a day, the union instructed flight attendants to defy these orders.
Now it appears there’s lastly a decision, so let’s hope this contract will get ratified, and that the long run impacts aren’t too dangerous.
What do you make of this replace about Air Canada resuming operations?
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