An Air Canada traveller gets her boarding pass at Montreal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in Dorval, Que., on Tuesday. The airline and flight attendants' union announced a tentative agreement early Tuesday as Air Canada is gradually returning to normal service.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
Sergio Roldan and his family are planning to head home to Ottawa on an Air Canada AC-T flight Sunday after a trip to visit relatives in Europe left them facing cancellations, hefty bills and uncertain schedules.
With the Air Canada strike over and the airline gradually resuming operations, Mr. Roldan, his wife and two children – aged 4 and 6 – are in a period of what he describes as “controlled uncertainty” in Edinburgh.
While Mr. Roldan is encouraged that planes are returning to service, he said he still considers his flight scheduled for the weekend a gamble.
“Do we trust Air Canada? Do we take a leap of faith and book things ourselves? And that’s going to be quite a prohibitive cost for us,” he said.
The 38-year-old and his family are among hundreds of thousands of passengers in Canada and around the world whose travel plans have been cancelled, delayed or clouded in uncertainty since flight attendants walked off the job on Saturday. The airline and the Canadian Union of Public Employees announced a tentative agreement early Tuesday and Air Canada is gradually returning to normal service.
The carrier said it could take more than a week to reboot its operations, including ushering its fleet out of storage largely in Toronto and Vancouver, and finding ways to staff its flights under the existing collective agreement.
Mr. Roldan and his family have also been bounced back-and-forth between cancelled Air Canada and United Airlines flights. When Air Canada cancelled his flight, he said he was sent a link to book an alternative flight with United Airlines free of charge, though when he did that, he said he was billed $4,600. That United flight was subsequently cancelled, sending him back to Air Canada and his flight on Sunday, while wondering whether he’s also on the hook for the cost of the United flight.
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As Mr. Roldan waits, others within Canada have been able to board flights home.
About two dozen campers who were part of a larger group that had been tenting at a campground in Squamish, B.C., flew out from Vancouver on Tuesday afternoon. But most of the group, about 126 Ukrainian scouts and their chaperones, remained behind.
The president of Plast Ukrainian Youth Association of Canada had penned a letter to Air Canada president and CEO Michael Rousseau on Saturday urging the airline to prioritize flights for the campers and their volunteers.
That was accompanied by a “tireless” e-mail campaign from parents, said Lada Darewych, executive director of Plast’s Toronto branch.
Ms. Darewych said that all of the children who have urgent reasons to return home, including one attending a funeral for a family member who died while the camper was away, were on two flights heading to Toronto.
“But, I’m not breathing until we’ve got everybody in a seat and on their way home,” Ms. Darewych said. She’s hopeful the remaining campers can leave Wednesday.
Other Canadians have chosen to fly with other airlines.
Kelly Boileau, 35, is finally heading back to Vancouver with her husband and two sons, aged 2 and 6, after what was intended to be a week-long trip in Toronto turned into days of chaos.
They were originally scheduled to fly back on Saturday, the first day of the strike. But Ms. Boileau realized by Wednesday last week that their plans would be disrupted. She decided that if cutting their vacation short meant they could get back home safely, then so be it. But when she called Air Canada to catch an earlier plane, she was told that wasn’t an option. None of the flights were cancelled then.
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From left to right, Kelly, Sam, Jeremy and Liam Boileau, in Toronto on Tuesday. The Boileau family were supposed to fly home to Vancouver from Toronto when the Air Canada strike began on Aug. 16.Ian Willms/The Globe and Mail
Come late Friday, however, the air carrier had changed its tune. “Now, they wanted to give us a refund, even though every other flight was at an astronomically higher price,” Ms. Boileau said. “And any option they were giving us for alternative flights were just these wild ideas of 42 hours of travelling with U.S. cities in between. I was definitely not going to make my little kids physically sick by going on that type of journey.”
As the family stayed longer than expected with friends in Toronto, trying to find a flight for four, Ms. Boileau borrowed a computer to work remotely. Her husband, a restaurant manager, missed work.
Eventually, Ms. Boileau connected with an Air Canada agent, who helped them with a direct flight – but with WestJet instead.
Ms. Boileau said she has lost all confidence in Air Canada. “We just don’t know how to believe their operations are in order yet,” she said.
“I wish they had communicated better with us. Going forward, I’ll probably be thinking twice before booking with them ever again.”
Janet Naylor, 37, feels the same way. She runs a business with her husband, James Naylor, 45, and books their frequent work-related travel most often with Air Canada. When Mr. Naylor’s trip last week from Calgary to Los Angeles was cancelled because of the strike, his wife found a solution with WestJet so he could make it to his meetings.
“It’s good news that the strike is seemingly ending, but unfortunately, it’s just too late for us. We were stuck paying for two tickets,” Ms. Naylor said Tuesday.
She said she’d love to consider options beyond Air Canada next time.
“But we just don’t have much choice when it comes to airlines in Canada, so what option do we have than booking with them again in the future?”
Air Canada's unionized flight attendants reached an agreement with the country's largest carrier on Tuesday, ending the first strike by its cabin crew in 40 years.
Reuters