With strike by flight attendants looming, Air Canada begins cancellations

Air Canada started suspending flights on Thursday morning as a potential strike by flight attendants looms.

"That includes a first set of cancellations that were processed this morning, in particular, long-haul international flights due to depart tonight," chief operations officer Mark Nasr said during a news conference, alongside chief human resources officer Arielle Meloul-Wechsler.

The cancellations will keep going and "grow in magnitude," Nasr said, with Air Canada expecting to cancel several dozen flights on Thursday and about 500 flights, affecting over 100,000 customers, by Friday evening.

All flights will be paused by Saturday morning, with the work stoppage slated to officially start just before 1 a.m. ET that day.

Canadian travellers have been anxiously awaiting news of cancelled flights. As of 11:15 a.m. ET, flight-tracking website FlightAware showed nine Air Canada flights had been cancelled.

The news conference, held at the Sheraton Hotel near Toronto's Pearson airport, was cut short by Air Canada's chief communications officer Christophe Hennebelle when CUPE members entered the room holding up signs bearing slogans like "Unpaid Work Won't Fly" and "Poverty Wages = UnCanadian."

Speaking outside after the briefing, a CUPE member said the union feels as if it is "being ignored," adding that the union "hasn't heard from the employer and they haven't been at the table" since Aug. 12.

The Air Canada executives said they have asked the federal government to intervene if a deal does not materialize, and that the airline has shared the level of disruption it anticipates with the government.

Earlier Thursday, the federal jobs minister said she asked the Canada Union of Public Employees to respond to the airline's request for binding arbitration.

"I have met with both parties throughout the bargaining process and strongly urged them to come to an agreement," Minister Patty Hajdu wrote on X.

"Air Canada submitted a request that I make a referral under Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code to send the parties to binding arbitration. I have asked the union to respond to the employer's request."

Earlier this week, Air Canada sent a proposal to CUPE that the parties use binding interest arbitration to come to an agreement as they negotiate the renewal of a 10-year collective agreement for more than 10,000 flight attendants.

CUPE declined to use arbitration, a process in which an outside arbitrator would hear proposals from each side about specific agenda items that haven't been agreed upon and then make a decision that would bind both parties.