Air Canada cancels flights ahead of work stoppage

Air Canada began to cancel flights in front of a possible working stop by flight officials who could affect hundreds of thousands of trips.

The full closure of the country’s largest airline threatens to influence approximately 130,000 people a day.

The union, representing the flight officials of approximately 10,000 Air Canada, issued a 72 -hour strike notification on Wednesday.

In response, the airline released a lockout notification.

Air Canada’s chief operations officer Mark Nasr, Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge operations began to be suspended gradually, he said.

“All flights will be paused on Saturday in the early morning,” he said.

Nasr said that this approach would help to facilitate a regular restarting process, which will last for a full week to be completed under the best conditions.

Authorized, the first cancellation set for several dozens of flights will affect long -distance overseas flights to be released on Thursday night, he said.

Nasr, “Tomorrow evening we expect to cancel flights that affect more than 100,000 customers.” He said.

“When we arrive at 1 o’clock on Saturday morning, we will be completely grounded.”

He said that a grounding would affect that 25,000 Canadians may be stranded abroad.

They expect 500 flights to be canceled by the end of Friday.

He said that customers whose flights have been canceled will be entitled to receive full refund and also made arrangements with other Canada and foreign carriers to offer alternative travel options as much as possible.

For Air Canada, Human Resources President Arielle Meloul-Wechsler said that their latest offers increased in total compensation, including benefits and pensions for four years.

The Union said that the main adhesion points revolved around what the flight officials call “poverty fees” and revolved around the unpaid labor force when the planes were not in the air.

On Thursday, some flight officials at the airline’s news conference, “unpaid work will not fly” and “poverty fees = uncanadian” organized signs.

Natasha Stea, representing the flight officials in Montreal for the Union, said that the airline thought that he trusted to intervene in the government.

Stea Adil and said they wanted a fair contract.

“There is still time. I’m sure if we sit down and talk, we can actually reach an agreement.”

The Union rejected an offer to enter a binding arbitration process from the airline and said that he preferred to negotiate an agreement that his members could vote.

Meloul-Wechsler said they were in a dead end, but they still exist for interviews and consent-based arbitration.

If an agreement is not reached, he said that the resulting “very serious disruptions” would ask the company to ask for government intervention.

Federal Business Minister Patty Hajdu said that he wanted the Union to respond to the airline’s arbitration request.

He called on both sides to come to an independent agreement, saying that he believed that the agreements were made on the best bargaining table.