WestJet cancels more than 800 flights, changes plans for 110,000 passengers

A strike by WestJet plane mechanics forced the airline to cancel hundreds more flights on Sunday, upending the plans of about 110,000 travelers over the Canada Day long weekend and prompting the carrier to demand federal government measures.

WestJet President Diederik Pen wrote in a statement released Sunday that the company has received a binding arbitration order and is waiting for the government to urgently clarify that a strike and arbitration cannot exist simultaneously.

He also insisted that it’s a problem they are committed to fixing and, like all Canadiansthey wait.

The approximately 680 workers, whose daily inspections and repairs are essential to the airline’s operations, walked off the job Friday night despite a binding arbitration directive from the federal labour minister.

According to the Reuters news agency, Bret Oestrich, the president of theAirplane Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA) has committed to continuing the work stoppage until a new collective agreement is signed. The latter also tells Reuters that the two parties are meeting with a mediator this Sunday.

All we want is to return to the negotiating tableMr. Oestreich told the news agency. The strike will remain in effect until we reach an agreement.

Disconcerted travelers

Since Thursday, WestJet has canceled 829 flights scheduled between then and Monday, the busiest travel weekend of the season, the carrier said.

The vast majority of Sunday’s flights were canceled as WestJet reduced its fleet of 180 planes to 32 active aircraft and topped the global list of cancellations among major airlines over the weekend.

Trevor Temple-Murray was among thousands of customers scrambling to rebook after their trips were canceled less than a day before departures.

We’ll just have to waitsaid the Lethbridge, Alta., resident, who was waiting in the Victoria airport parking lot to try to catch a plane to Calgary with his wife and two-year-old son, both in the car, beside him.

Their flight, scheduled for 6:05 p.m., was canceled and they will not know until the evening if a flight scheduled for 7 a.m. the next day will take place.

There are a lot of angry people out theresaid Mr. Temple-Murray, pointing to the airport.

Other travelers took to social media to express their frustration, sometimes in colorful language.

One customer claimed the airline did not inform him until 11:12pm on Saturday that their next day’s flight from Las Vegas had been cancelled, calling the last-minute decision ‘bastard behaviour’.

Accusations on both sides

WestJet and the Airplane Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA) are accusing each other of refusing to negotiate in good faith.

WestJet Airlines President Diederik Pen criticized what he calls actions imprudentes continues of the union, which according to him makes efforts flagrants to disrupt Canadians’ travel plans, while the union contends the Calgary-based company has refused to respond to its latest counter-proposal.

On Sunday, the union side said its members were victims of WestJet’s virulent public relations campaign that [ils sont ]offendersciting slander against workers regarding their right to strike.

The pressure tactics come after union members voted overwhelmingly to reject a tentative deal with WestJet in mid-June and after two weeks of tense negotiations between the two sides.

As Friday’s strike deadline approached, the impasse prompted Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan to step in, demanding the airline and union enter into binding arbitration run by the country’s employment tribunal.

This process generally avoids a work stoppage. WestJet certainly thought so, saying the union had confirmed that he would follow the instructions.

Under these conditions, no strike or lockout will take place and the airline will no longer cancel flights.the airline said Thursday.

AMFA took a different view. The union negotiating committee said it would comply with the minister’s order and ask its members to refrain from any illegal action. Less than 24 hours later, workers were on the picket lines.

A decision by the Canada Industrial Relations Board appears to confirm the legality of their actions, regardless of the protocols surrounding arbitration, a process that generally avoids work stoppages rather than triggering them.

The council considers that the ministerial referral does not have the effect of suspending the right to strike or lockoutthe court wrote Friday.

Mr O’Regan said the following day that the board’s decision was clearly incompatible with the instructions he had given, but later added that he respected the independence of the body. He met with both parties on Saturday evening.

I told them that they had to work together with the Canada Industrial Relations Board to resolve their differences and reach their first agreement.he wrote in a social media post.

Mr. O’Regan has broad powers under the Canada Labor Code. Although his initial directive to the binding arbitration tribunal may have assumed that a strike was precluded due to precedent, the Minister of Labor could take a series of measures to ensure social peace and promote conditions favourable to the resolution of labour disputesspecifies the legislation.

For these purposes, the Minister may (…) order the Council to take such measures as it deems necessary.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said in a social media post Sunday that the federal government can do the right thing by intervening to end the work stoppage today.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith had a similar message.

Unknown territory

This is uncharted territory. We are breaking a new precedent here.said Ian Evershed, a mechanic and union representative involved in the negotiations, during a telephone interview on Sunday.

The union’s goal remains a deal reached through negotiation rather than arbitration, a path it has opposed from the start.

This process could take months, he said, emphasizing that a strike puts pressure on the employer. This position is at odds with WestJet’s statement that the pressure tactics amounted to ‘pure retaliation’ given that an agreement would be settled through arbitration anyway.

It was our only decisionstipulated Mr. Evershed, adding that a negotiated agreement could still see the light of day.

In a brief submitted to the court last week, WestJet lawyers said the union was seeking an unreasonable and extortionate result and had intentionally maneuvered to place the strike date at the height of summer travel.

The union says its wage demands would cost WestJet less than $8 million more than what the company offered for the first year of the collective agreement, the first contract between the two sides. He acknowledged that salaries would be higher than the compensation of industry colleagues across Canada and would be more comparable to their American counterparts.

WestJet says it has offered a 12.5 per cent wage increase in the first year of the contract, plus a compound wage increase of 23 per cent over the remainder of the five-and-a-half years.

Meanwhile, the weekend’s turbulence has made some people happy.

We’re seeing a huge increase in bookings, likely driven by passengers scrambling to save their long weekendreported Kim Bowie, spokesperson for Flair Airlines, a low-cost airline based in Edmonton.

With information from Reuters