Hundreds of Air Canada flight attendants picket at Toronto Pearson Airport on Monday. Nearly all CUPE flight attendants voted in favour of a strike.Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
Talks have broken down between Air Canada AC-T and the union representing flight attendants after the carrier unsuccessfully proposed to involve a third-party arbitrator to resolve the labour dispute.
Air Canada and the Air Canada Component of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents 10,400 flight attendants, have been negotiating for a new collective agreement since December, 2024, with little success.
If a deal is not reached by Tuesday’s end, CUPE could issue a 72-hour strike notice. That would mean a strike of Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge flight attendants could begin on Saturday at 12:01 a.m.
According to a copy of a letter sent Monday by Air Canada to the union and obtained by The Globe and Mail, the airline requested that CUPE agree to refer the negotiation to binding interest arbitration at the Canadian Industrial Relations Board, or CIRB. Involving a federal arbitrator would allow all parties to “move forward without further delay and uncertainty,” the letter says.
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The role of an arbitrator at the federal labour board is to resolve unsettled terms in a new collective agreement, and essentially force the parties to agree upon a new deal within a set timeline. Air Canada has used the CIRB to resolve negotiations in the past – specifically in 2011 to settle a dispute with flight attendants over wages and pensions.
The union on Tuesday afternoon rejected Air Canada’s proposal for binding arbitration. It believes that the involvement of an arbitrator would serve only to work in Air Canada’s favour.
The airline “no longer wants to negotiate,” said Wesley Lesosky, president of the Air Canada Component of CUPE.
“They want to go to arbitration, rather than stay at the bargaining table and bargain for a new contract.”
Air Canada said in a statement issued Tuesday evening that it was exploring the possibility of requesting that Ottawa intervene to force both parties into binding arbitration. The federal government has employed Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code six times over the past two years, a clause that allows Ottawa to directly request that the CIRB arbitrate a dispute.
Mr. Lesosky said arbitrators rely on precedent and the status quo to make their determinations, but Air Canada flight attendants are trying to break the status quo by ending the practice of unpaid work in the industry.
One of the key points of contention between both sides is the issue of unpaid work. The union argues that flight attendants should be paid for the work they do before the airline takes off and after it lands. They are currently compensated an hourly rate from the time the airline takes off to the point where it lands, but are not paid during boarding, safety checks and deplaning.
Air Canada and the flight attendants' union returned to the bargaining table on Tuesday afternoon.Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
The airline had offered to begin compensating flight attendants for some of these duties, but only at 50 per cent of their hourly rate, according to the union. On the issue of wages, union said Air Canada offered an 8-per-cent increase for the first year of a new four-year contract, and a 17.2-per-cent wage increase over four years.
Air Canada said Tuesday evening that it tabled a proposal to the union the day before of a 38-per-cent increase in total compensation, which includes wages and benefits, over a four-year contract. But the union rejected the proposal and submitted a counteroffer seeking “exorbitant” wage increases, the airline said.
CUPE flight attendants delivered one of the strongest strike mandates in recent Canadian labour history, with 99.7 per cent voting in favour of a strike, and 94.6 per cent of more than 10,000 members turning out to vote. They had been locked into a 10-year collective agreement since March, 2015.
According to the union, flight attendants work an average of 35 hours a month for free, almost a week’s worth of pay. The union surveyed flight attendants between December, 2022, and January, 2023, and found that nearly 99 per cent of flight attendants do not get paid while assisting passengers disembarking planes, and 98 per cent said they did not get paid when planes are held at the gate.
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A backgrounder on Air Canada’s website detailing flight attendant compensation states that the starting salary for a flight attendant hired in 2015 was $25.13 an hour. If the flight attendant continued working in the same position for a decade, their current pay would be $63.07 an hour – a 150-per-cent increase. The document also states that half of Air Canada’s flight attendants earned more than $54,000 in 2024, excluding incentive rewards, and health and pension benefits.
Air Canada’s operating revenue has increased substantially over the past four years since bottoming out in 2021, at the height of the pandemic. In its latest quarter ending June, 2025, Air Canada generated $5.6-billion in revenue and net income of $186-million.
The airline said customers whose flights are cancelled in the event of a strike will be notified and eligible for a full refund.