Toronto/CMEDIA: The contract dispute reportedly between Air Canada and its flight attendants ended today by reaching a tentative agreement, both the airline and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) announced Tuesday.
Following nine hours of talks with the assistance of the chief mediator appointed by the federal government, the deal struck will be presented to its membership, who will have an opportunity to ratify it. said CUPE, which represents more than 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants.
While giving the details on the agreement, the union said it guarantees ground pay for its members, which had been a major sticking point in talks so far.
Ground pay is compensation for work performed while planes are on the ground, and flight attendants historically haven’t been paid for this time spent loading and unloading passengers, or when flights are cancelled or delayed.
“Unpaid work is over. We have reclaimed our voice and our power,” the union said in a statement.
Although not compensating for ground pay is a common practice in the industry, flight attendants of some airlines are being paid for this time in recent years.
Customers are advised to be patient as full restoration of service “may require a week or more,” said Michael Rousseau, the airline’s president and chief executive officer and added that “everyone at Air Canada is doing everything possible to enable them to travel soon.”
In the event of the transition to full resumption of service, the airline would see some flights being cancelled, but Rousseau said the airline would offer options to customers in such a scenario, including a full refund, a credit for future travel and, if space allowed, rebooking on other airlines.
Passengers of Pearson International Airport are being advised to check their flight status over the coming days before travelling to terminals and said it has deployed additional staff across the terminals and baggage areas to assist passengers and support the startup operations.
Operates about 700 flights daily, Air Canada had estimated on Monday that 500,000 customers would be affected by flight cancellations.
At least 1,219 domestic flights and 1,339 international flights had been called off by the Air Canada since last Thursday, Aviation analytics firm Cirium said.
The union and the airline both agreed to the mediator, William Kaplan, who previously assisted in Canada Post labour negotiations.
