WestJet cancels more than 400 flights due to strike

TORONTO

WestJet, Canada’s second-largest airline, said it had cancelled 407 flights affecting 49,000 passengers after the maintenance workers’ union announced a strike.

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The Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association said its members began the strike on the evening of June 28 because the airline’s “unwillingness to negotiate with the union” made it unavoidable.

The surprise strike in international and domestic air traffic came after the federal government issued a ministerial decree on binding arbitration on June 27. This was followed by two weeks of turbulent negotiations with the union on a new collective agreement.

WestJet operates 198 commercial aircraft to over 100 destinations in nearly 30 countries.

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.”

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

Sean McVeigh, a WestJet aircraft maintenance technician who went on strike outside Terminal 3 at Toronto Pearson International Airport on June 29, said the strike was an attempt to force the airline to return to “respectful negotiations.”