Air Canada suspends all operations as the hostesses smell on strike after no agreement arrived

Air Canada He suspended all operations, since more than 10,000 of the airline hostesses were strike on Saturday morning on Saturday after a deadline to reach an agreement.

The spokesman of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Hugh Pouliot, confirmed that the strike had begun after no agreement was reached, and the airline said shortly after it would stop operations.

“Now we are officially on strike! The picket lines will be active in all the bases,” said the union in a statement.

It is the first attack of flight attendees since 1985.

A bitter contract fight between the largest airline in Canada and the union that represents 10,000 of its hostess intensified on Friday when the union rejected the request of the airline to enter into the arbitration directed by the Government, which would eliminate its right to attack and allow a third party mediator deciding the terms of a new contract.

Flight attendees left work around 1 in the morning EDT on Saturday. Almost at the same time, Air Canada said it would begin to locate airport airports.

Federal Minister Patty Hajdu, met with the airline and the union on Friday night and urged them to work more to reach an agreement “once and for all.”

“It is unacceptable that they have become so little progress. Canadians have both parties to present their best efforts,” Hajdu said in a statement published on social networks.

Pouliot, the union spokesman, said previously that the union had a meeting with Hajdu and representatives of Air Canada on Friday night.

“Cupe has committed to the mediator to convey our will to continue negotiating, although Air Canada has not counteracted our last two offers since Tuesday,” he said in an email. “We are here to negotiate an agreement, not to go on strike.”

A complete closure will affect approximately 130,000 people daily, and around 25,000 Canadians will be stranded abroad every day. Air Canada operates around 700 flights per day.

The airline said it would also offer alternative travel options through other Canadian and foreign airlines when possible. But he warned that he could not guarantee immediate refund because flights in other airlines are already full “due to the summer travel peak.”

“Air Canada advises affected customers not to go to the airport unless they have a confirmed ticket on an airline that is not Air Canada or Air Canada Rouge,” said the airline in a statement. “Air Canada deeply regrets the effect of the strike in customers.”

In advance of the strike, the airline began Cancel flights on Thursdays and Fridays As flight attendees did not report work.

It remains to be seen how long the airline aircraft will see, but the director of Operations of Air Canada, Mark Nasr, has said that it could take up to a week restarting operations once an tentative agreement is reached.

Passengers whose trip will be affected will be eligible to request a complete refund on the website or the airline’s mobile application, according to Air Canada.

Air Canada and the Canadian Union of Public Employees have been in contract conversations for about eight months, but have not yet reached an tentative agreement.

Both parties say they remain very separate in the issue of payment and unpaid work hostesses when the airplanes are not in the air.

The last offer of the airline included a 38% increase in total compensation, including benefits and pensions for four years, which said “would have made our hostesses the best compensated in Canada.”

But the union delayed, saying that the 8% increase proposed in the first year was not far enough due to inflation.

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