Air Canada flight attendants end strike after tentative deal with airline

Air Canada’s cabin crew returned to work Tuesday after their union struck a tentative agreement with the airline, bringing an end to a disruptive strike that had affected hundreds of thousands of travelers, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), which represents roughly 10,000 flight attendants, confirmed that a deal was reached late Monday through mediated talks.

“The strike has ended. We have a tentative agreement we will bring forward to you,” CUPE’s Air Canada branch said in a statement, adding that members should “fully cooperate with resumption of operations.”

Air Canada, which carries about 130,000 passengers daily, said it would begin restoring flights gradually. “Restarting a major carrier like Air Canada is a complex undertaking. Full restoration may require a week or more,” company president Michael Rousseau noted. The airline’s vice president for communications, Christophe Hennebelle, also cautioned that travelers could face “a few difficult days ahead,” citing aircraft and crew scheduling challenges.

The strike began early Saturday after the union accused the carrier of ignoring demands for higher wages and pay for ground duties such as boarding, time that typically goes uncompensated in the airline industry. Despite two back-to-work orders from the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB), the union pressed ahead with the walkout, forcing Air Canada to delay earlier plans to partially restore flights.

Federal labor minister Patty Hajdu had already intervened over the weekend, invoking legislation that allowed the government to compel arbitration. Still, CUPE resisted until the latest round of talks produced what the union described as a breakthrough.

“Unpaid work is over,” CUPE declared in its statement, calling the tentative deal “transformational change for our industry.”

Neither the airline nor the union released details of the agreement, which must still go to a ratification vote. Air Canada said it would withhold comment on the specifics “until the ratification process is complete.”

The strike, which lasted several days, disrupted flights across Air Canada’s global network, forcing cancellations that the airline said affected as many as 500,000 passengers. With the agreement in place, the first flights were scheduled to take off Tuesday evening, though officials estimate that it could take a week to ten days before normal service fully resumes.