WestJet warns of further flight disruptions during recovery from strike

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WestJet announces that there will be further flight disruptions and cancellations this week after an agreement was reached to end a strike by mechanics.

The airline issued a press release early Monday morning (EDT) saying it was resuming operations safely and in a timely manner, but due to the “significant impact” to its network over the past few days, it will “take time and experience further disruption before normal flight operations can resume.”

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“We are grateful to be able to resume operations. However, we are fully aware of the ongoing impact on our guests and sincerely appreciate their patience and understanding,” airline President Diederik Pen said in another press release on Monday afternoon.

When the preliminary agreement was announced in a late-night statement, the airline said it had cancelled around 830 scheduled flights between Thursday and Monday and reduced its fleet from 180 aircraft to 32 active aircraft.

It is now said that in addition to the 78 flights already cancelled on Monday, a further 214 flights will be cancelled and 27 flights have been cancelled for Tuesday.

Around 680 members of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, whose daily inspections and repairs are essential for flight operations, went on strike on Friday evening despite an instruction from the Federal Minister of Labor to enter into a binding arbitration procedure.

In its own press release, the union called on its members to return to work immediately until the agreement is voted on.

Among the challenges WestJet currently faces is the fact that its aircraft are parked at 13 airports across Canada, eight of which do not have crew bases, meaning crew must be transported to the aircraft for pickup.

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The parked aircraft will need to undergo standard maintenance and safety checks before they can return to service, it said. It also said that rescuing stranded crew across its network was an “immediate priority”.

The strike disrupted the travel plans of tens of thousands of travellers over the Canada Day long weekend.

“We believe this outcome would not have been possible without the strike, but regret the disruption and inconvenience it caused to travellers during the Canada Day holiday,” the union said in a statement.

“The timing was coincidental as the negotiation process did not follow a predictable timetable.”

Late last week, shortly before the strike deadline expired on Friday, Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan ordered that both sides undergo binding arbitration before the country’s labour court.

The union’s negotiating committee had declared that it would “follow the Minister’s instructions” and instructed its members to “refrain from any unlawful industrial action”. But less than 24 hours later, the workers were already on the picket line.

A decision by the Canada Industrial Relations Board appeared to confirm the legality of their actions, regardless of the mediation protocols.

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The union said the tentative five-year contract includes immediate wage increases, full restoration of the WestJet Savings Plan and improved benefits. If members ratify the contract, the mandatory arbitration process ordered by the labor minister will no longer be necessary, it said.

Both WestJet and the union had accused the other side of refusing to engage in serious negotiations.

Pen had stressed the “ongoing reckless actions” of a union that was making “blatant efforts” to thwart Canadians’ travel plans. The union, in turn, claimed in an update to its members on Sunday that the mechanics were “victims of WestJet’s vicious PR campaign claiming they are lawbreakers.”

This is the second preliminary agreement in this dispute.

After two weeks of tense talks between the two parties, union members overwhelmingly rejected a tentative deal with WestJet in mid-June.

Before the latest agreement was reached overnight, WestJet said it had offered a 12.5 percent pay increase in the first year of the contract and a cumulative 23 percent pay increase for the remainder of the five-and-a-half-year term.

The union had said its wage demands would cost WestJet less than $8 million more than what the company had offered for the first year of the collective bargaining agreement – the first contract between the two sides. It acknowledged that the gains would exceed compensation for industry peers across Canada and be more in line with U.S. counterparts.

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