By ROB GILLIES, Associated Press
TORONTO (AP) — A complete shutdown of Air Canada is looming if the union representing the flight attendants of the country’s dominant air carrier and the airline fail to reach an agreement by early Saturday.
More than 10,000 flight attendants are poised to walk off the job around 1 a.m. EST on Saturday, followed by a company-imposed lockout. It threatens to impact about 130,000 travelers a day.
The Canadian carrier said it expects to call off 500 flights by the end of Friday ahead of the deadline. It already started canceling flights on Thursday in expectation of the massive work stoppage that could impact hundreds of thousands of travelers.
A full grounding could affect some 25,000 Canadians a day abroad who may become stranded.
“We strongly urge the parties to work with federal mediators and get a deal done. Time is precious and Canadians are counting on you,” Federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu said in a statement Friday.
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By midday Friday, Air Canada had called off 87 domestic flights and 176 international flights that were scheduled to depart on Friday and Saturday, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. On Thursday, when the airline said it was beginning it’s “phased wind down” of most operations, 18 domestic flights and four international flights were canceled.
Canadian Union of Public Employees, or CUPE, which represents the flight attendants, refused to voluntarily submit to arbitration. “The appropriate course of action is for Air Canada to return to the table and resume good faith bargaining,” it said in a statement.
The union, which represents about 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants, and the airline say disagreements over key issues, including pay raises, have brought contract talks to a standstill.
How long the planes will be grounded remains to be seen.
Air Canada Chief Operating Officer Mark Nasr said the decision to lock out the union members even if it meant halting flights would help facilitate an orderly restart, “which under the best circumstances will take a full week to complete.”
Air Canada and CUPE have been in contract talks for about eight months, but they have yet to reach a tentative deal.
The union put it to a vote at the end of July and 99.7% approved a strike. On Wednesday, it gave Air Canada a 72-hour strike notice. The airline responded with a so-called lockout notice, saying it would prevent the flight attendants from working on Saturday.
The union said it rejected a proposal from the airline to enter a binding arbitration process that would have prevented flight attendants from walking off the job, saying it prefers to negotiate a deal that its members can then vote on.
