Canadian airline WestJet cancels at least 235 flights after surprise strike by mechanics union

TORONTO – Canada’s second-largest airline, WestJet, said it had cancelled at least 235 flights carrying 33,000 passengers on Saturday after the maintenance workers’ union announced a strike.

The Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association said its members began the strike on Friday evening because the airline’s “unwillingness to negotiate with the union” made it unavoidable.

The strike came after the federal government issued a ministerial order for binding arbitration on Thursday, following two weeks of turbulent negotiations with the union over a new collective agreement.

WestJet executives said at a press conference in Calgary that another 150 flights could be cancelled by the end of the day if there is no resolution to the strike.

The airline’s CEO, Alexis von Hoensbroech, clearly blamed the situation on a “renegade union from the United States” trying to gain a foothold in Canada.

Von Hoensbroech said negotiations with the union had ended for the airline after the government submitted the dispute to binding arbitration.

“This makes a strike completely absurd, because the real reason for a strike is to put pressure on the negotiating table,” he said. “If there is no negotiating table, there is no point, then there should be no strike.”

He added that the union had rejected a wage offer that would have made the airline’s mechanics the “best paid in the country.”

The surprise strike, which affects international and domestic flights, takes place during the Canada Day long weekend.

In an update to its members, the union’s bargaining committee pointed to a Canada Industrial Relations Board order that does not explicitly prohibit strikes or lockouts during the tribunal’s arbitration process.

Sean McVeigh, a WestJet aircraft maintenance technician who went on strike outside Terminal 3 at Toronto Pearson International Airport on Saturday, said the strike was an attempt to force the airline to return to “respectful negotiations.”

McVeigh said the union regrets any inconvenience caused to passengers.

“However, the reason they (the passengers) may have missed a flight or had to cancel it is because WestJet is not sitting respectfully at the negotiating table,” he said, along with about 20 other strikers. “We have a huge responsibility and we just want financial recognition,” he said.

In Pearson, WestJet passengers Samin Sahan and Samee Jan said they had planned to leave on Saturday with other family members for a trip to Calgary that had been planned for six to eight months.

Sahan said they received emails earlier in the day telling them their flight had been rescheduled for Monday, but they went to the terminal anyway. He said their efforts to get clarity, combined with the strike, had thrown their travel plans into disarray.

“This inaction is hurting many people, their own businesses and their customers who will likely never be their customers again,” Sahan said.

Jan called the situation “sad.”