Air Canada crew to remain on strike despite airline announcing flight resumption | World News

The statement comes after Air Canada announced that it will resume flights on Sunday evening after the order. The union, however, said that it would challenge the order directing more than 10,000 of its members to return to work.

The shutdown of Canada’s largest airline early on Saturday was impacting about 130,000 people a day. Air Canada operates around 700 flights per day.

Less than 12 hours after workers walked off the job, Canada’s Federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu ordered the 10,000 flight attendants back to work, saying now is not the time to take risks with the economy and noting the unprecedented tariffs the US has imposed on the country. Hajdu referred the work stoppage to the Canada Industrial Relations Board.

The airline said on Sunday that the Canada Industrial Relations Board has extended the term of the existing collective agreement until the arbitrator determines a new one.

According to Air Canada, passengers whose flights are impacted will be eligible to request a full refund on the airline’s website or mobile app.

The Air Canada contract feud

The bitter contract fight between Air Canada and the cabin crew union escalated on Friday as the union turned down the airline’s prior request to enter into government-directed arbitration, which allows a third-party mediator to decide the terms of a new contract.

Flight attendants walked off the job around 1 AM EDT on Saturday. Around the same time, Air Canada said it would begin locking flight attendants out of airports.

Air Canada and the Canadian Union of Public Employees have been in contract talks for about eight months, but they have yet to reach a tentative deal.

Both sides have said they remain far apart on the issue of pay and the unpaid work 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.

According to numbers from aviation analytics provider Cirium, Air Canada had cancelled 671 flights by Saturday afternoon, following 199 on Friday. Another 96 flights scheduled for Sunday had already been suspended.