WestJet passengers faced further flight disruptions Tuesday, despite an agreement reached over the weekend to end a mechanics strike.
The airline said full resumption of operations “will take time”.
FlightAware tracking service counted 76 cancellations as of midday Tuesday, along with 71 delays. Since Thursday, 1,051 flights have been canceled.
On Tuesday, some WestJet customers were notified of a brief window to purchase discounted tickets. An email announced a promotion offering savings of up to 30 per cent on travel between July 9 and Feb. 16, 2025, when booking by 11:59 p.m. Wednesday. The carrier said the offer applies to more than 95 destinations.
Some 680 members of the Airplane Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA), whose daily inspections and repairs are essential to airline operations, walked out on Friday night despite a binding arbitration directive from the federal Minister of Labour.
In its own press release, the union urged its members to return to work immediately pending the vote on the agreement.
PHOTO CHRIS HELGREN, REUTERS ARCHIVES
Mechanics on strike at Vancouver airport, June 29
The challenges WestJet says it faces include having its planes parked at 13 airports across Canada, eight of which do not have crew bases, meaning crews must be transported to the plane to be picked up.
The parked aircraft will require standard maintenance and safety checks before returning to service, the company said. It also said that recovering crews stranded on its network “will be an immediate priority.”
Many impacts on travelers
Hundreds of flights cancelled due to the strike have complicated things for many Canadians who had planned to take advantage of the long weekend to travel.
“We believe this outcome would not have been possible without the strike, but we regret the disruption and inconvenience it caused to the public during the long Canada Day holiday,” the union said in a written statement.
“The timing (of the strike) is coincidental, as the negotiation process did not follow a predictable timetable. We are pleased that the strike only lasted 48 hours and that service can now return to normal.”
Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan ordered late last week, as Friday’s strike deadline approached, that both sides enter into binding arbitration run by the country’s employment tribunal.
The union’s negotiating committee had said it would “comply with the minister’s order” and instruct its members to “refrain from any illegal pressure tactics,” but less than 24 hours later, workers were on the picket lines.
A decision by the Canada Industrial Relations Board appears to affirm the legality of their actions, regardless of the protocols surrounding arbitration.
Tumultuous negotiations
The agreement in principle reached on Sunday is the second to be reached in the context of these negotiations, which aim to establish a first collective agreement for WestJet maintenance engineers.
The first proposal was rejected by members in mid-June. Since then, both sides have accused each other of negotiating in bad faith.
In any case, according to WestJet, there will be no further union action in this matter, since “both parties have agreed to arbitrate the contract in the event of failure to ratify,” Mr. Pen specified.
If the agreement in principle is ratified, the collective agreement will last five years.
The union said the tentative five-year deal includes immediate wage increases, the full restoration of the WestJet savings plan and enhanced benefits. It added that if members ratify it, mandatory arbitration ordered by the labour minister would not be necessary.
Before the latest deal was struck overnight, WestJet said it had offered a 12.5 per cent wage increase in the first year of the contract, plus a compounded 23 per cent wage increase for the remainder of the five-and-a-half years.
The union had said its wage demands would cost WestJet less than $8 million above what the company offered in the first year of the collective agreement — the first contract between the two sides. It acknowledged the gains would exceed the pay of industry colleagues across Canada and be more comparable to their U.S. counterparts.
Employees affected by this negotiation will be called to vote on the agreement in principle shortly.