Travel chaos: Major airline cancels over 800 flights after surprise union strike

• The Aircraft Mechanical Fraternal Association voted to strike on Friday evening
• By Sunday, more than 800 flights had been cancelled

After Canada’s second-largest airline cancelled hundreds of flights over the holiday weekend, tens of thousands of passengers were stranded and desperately searching for answers.

Calgary-based airline WestJet announced Saturday morning that it would cancel more than 400 flights through Sunday – affecting nearly 50,000 customers – as it struggles to reach an agreement with the Aircraft Mechanical Fraternal Association, which voted to strike Friday night, prompting hundreds of employees to walk off the job.

The airline cancelled another 410 flights overnight, bringing the total number of cancelled flights to more than 800 by Sunday.

WestJet will now continue to cancel flights to reduce its fleet from about 200 aircraft to just about 30 by the weekend as thousands of travellers try to depart before Canada Day on July 1.

Passengers at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport described arriving at Terminal 3 to get answers and be rebooked on another flight – only to be met with silence from airline staff.

Villamor Torres and Mary Jane Herrera said they went to the airport after trying to rebook their flight to the Cayman Islands by phone.

They said they were just getting ready to travel on Saturday when they received an email around 9:40 a.m. informing them that their flight had been cancelled.

“We are trying to figure out what to do,” Herrera told The Globe and Mail.

“We are in the process of getting a new flight, but they said if we get a new flight, they will not compensate us.”

Amy Morris, who was visiting Canada for the first time from Atlanta, Georgia, also described the situation as “chaos.”

“We had planned a hike in Banff for tomorrow, but we lost at least the entire first day,” she said. “This is not a good start to Canada.”

She said her family of four was on their way to Calgary when they learned their connecting flight to Toronto was canceled.

“We are not getting any information from WestJet at all. They said we would get a new flight within a few hours, but we have not heard anything.”

“It was (our) last family vacation,” Morris added. “The kids are moving out of state and it was supposed to be our last hurrah.”

Others have reached out to X to vent their frustration with the airline, including Liam Stein, who claimed his “wedding in Mexico was ruined due to your inability to contain this strike.”

“Tens of thousands of dollars gone because you couldn’t swallow your pride and save the biggest travel week of the year,” he posted on Saturday.

“WestJet will never recover from this incompetence.”

Matt Estrada also said he had to spend $451 on a hotel room because his flight was canceled – and claimed WestJet would not cover the cost of accommodation because the strikes were “unplanned.”

“Some kind of natural disaster, they say,” he wrote, adding that “there are no rental cars available at all.”

Meanwhile, Samin Sahan and Samee Jan said they were planning to leave for a trip to Calgary with their extended family on Saturday when they received an email saying their flight had been rescheduled for Monday.

They said they decided to go to the airport anyway to get clarity and hope to get an earlier flight, but got no answers.

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

One of the striking mechanics outside Toronto Pearson Airport said he regretted 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 down at the negotiating table respectfully,” said Sean McVeigh.

“We take on a lot of responsibility and would like to receive financial recognition for it.”

The Aircraft Mechanical Fraternal Association claims the strike was inevitable due to WestJet’s “unwillingness to negotiate” and accused the airline of retaliating against union members.

WestJet CEO Alexis von Hoensbroech, meanwhile, blamed the situation on a “renegade union from the US” trying to gain a foothold in Canada.

He claimed the union had rejected an offer that would have made aircraft mechanics the “best paid in the country.”

Von Hoensbroech also said negotiations with the airline’s union ended after Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan asked the Canada Industrial Relations Board to resolve the contract dispute through binding arbitration – a process in which a third party advises on terms.

The board ordered the contract to be finalized through arbitration on Friday, but noted that O’Regan’s referral “does not constitute a suspension of the right to strike or lockout.”

“This makes a strike completely absurd, because the real reason for a strike is to exert pressure at the negotiating table,” said Von Hoensbroech.

“If there is no negotiating table, there is no point in anything – then there should be no strike.”

According to The Globe and Mail, WestJet President Diedrik Pen also said the airline was “extremely outraged” at the union and would hold them “100 percent responsible for the unnecessary stress and costs it caused.”

Minister O’Regan said he met with representatives from both WestJet and the union on Saturday and told them they needed to work together “to resolve their differences and reach their initial agreement.”

The two parties are expected to meet again on Sunday with the involvement of a mediator, Bret Ostreich, president of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, told Reuters.

“We just want to get back to the negotiating table,” he said, vowing that “the strike will continue until we reach an agreement.”

Meanwhile, Gabor Lokacs, a Canadian airline passenger rights lawyer, says WestJet is legally obligated to offer passengers on cancelled flights a reasonable and prompt alternative.

“Under passenger protection rules, you must rebook your flight on another airline or purchase a ticket on a competitor,” he told The Globe and Mail, adding that the airline must do so within the first few hours of a flight being cancelled.

“If WestJet is unavailable for several hours, the company is failing in its obligation,” he said.

Lokacs now recommends that passengers who cannot reach the airline or are not offered an alternative travel plan book a flight at their own expense – and send WestJet the bill.

Most importantly, he said, “they document every message and every exchange with the airline.”