Air Canada reaches deal with union to end strike
[August 19, 2025] By
ROB GILLIES
TORONTO (AP) — The union for Air Canada's 10,000 flight attendants said
early Tuesday that it has reached a tentative agreement to end a strike.
Air Canada and the union resumed talks late Monday for the first time
since the strike began over the weekend. The strike is affecting about
130,000 travelers a day at the peak of the summer travel season.
The union said the agreement will guarantee members pay for work
performed while planes are on the ground, resolving one of the major
issues that drove the strike.
“Unpaid work is over. We have reclaimed our voice and our power," the
union said in a statement. “When our rights were taken away, we stood
strong, we fought back — and we secured a tentative agreement that our
members can vote on.”
It followed the union’s declaration that the flight attendants wouldn't
return to work even though the strike was declared illegal.
Earlier, Air Canada said rolling cancellations would now extend through
Tuesday afternoon after the union defied a second return-to-work order.
The Canada Industrial Relations Board had declared the strike illegal
Monday and ordered the flight attendants back on the job. But the union
said it would defy the directive. Union leaders also ignored a weekend
order to submit to binding arbitration and end the strike by Sunday
afternoon.
The board is an independent administrative tribunal that interprets and
applies Canada’s labor laws. The government ordered the board to
intervene.
Labor leaders objected to the Canadian government’s repeated use of a
law that cuts off workers’ right to strike and forces them into
arbitration, a step the government took in recent years with workers at
ports, railways and elsewhere.
Air Canada operates around 700 flights per day. The airline estimated
Monday that 500,000 customers would be affected by flight cancellations.
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Travelers look out over grounded Air Canada planes as flight
attendants picket at Pearson International Airport in Toronto,
Monday, Aug. 18, 2025. (Sammy Kogan/The Canadian Press via AP)
 Aviation analytics firm Cirium said
that as of Monday afternoon, Air Canada had called off at least
1,219 domestic flights and 1,339 international flights since last
Thursday, when the carrier began gradually suspending its operations
ahead of the strike and lockout.
Flight attendants walked off the job early Saturday, after turning
down the airline’s request to enter into government-directed
arbitration, which allows a third-party mediator to decide the terms
of a new contract.
Air Canada and CUPE have been in contract talks for about eight
months but remain far apart on the issue of pay and the unpaid work
that flight attendants do when planes aren’t in the air.
The airline’s latest offer included a 38% increase in total
compensation, including benefits and pensions, over four years, that
it said “would have made our flight attendants the best compensated
in Canada.”
But the union pushed back, saying the proposed 8% raise in the first
year didn’t go far enough because of inflation.
Passengers whose flights are impacted will be eligible to request a
full refund on the airline’s website or mobile app, according to Air
Canada.
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