Some Toronto travellers make back-up plans amid potential Air Canada pilot strike

As a potential pilot strike threatens to shut down Air Canada operations as early as Sunday, some travellers in Toronto are making contingency plans for their return home.

“What am I going to do on maybe Saturday night? Possibly look at some extra options,” said one traveller, whose return Air Canada flight from Texas is scheduled on the same day the airline could start winding down its operations.

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“We are looking at WestJet, we’re looking at other options. But as of right now, everything is going to get expensive. So it’s going to create a lot of havoc for us,” said another person who was dropping off their mother for their Thursday morning flight to Nevada out of Pearson International Airport.

Negotiations between Air Canada and the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), which represents more than 5,200 pilots across the airline’s network, have stalled over what the flag-carrier has called “excessive” wage demands by the union.

If a deal is not reached between the two parties before Sept. 15, Air Canada said either side can trigger a 72-hour strike or lockout notice, leading to a complete shutdown of service by Sept. 18. That would result in the grounding of Air Canada’s nearly 670 daily flights, which are used by more than 110,000 customers, in a work stoppage the airline said is “increasingly likely.”

“We have seen some movement in the last couple days. We're not there yet, though. We do need Air Canada to really show up and compensate, value this pilot group appropriately for the work that we do provide Air Canada,” Charlene Hudy, ALPA’s Air Canada master executive council chair, told CP24 on Thursday.

Hudy said in most cases, Air Canada pilots are paid half of what their Canadian and North American counterparts make. Moreover, she said that of the pilots the union represents, a quarter of them have a second job.

“They're trying to pay off the debt that they had to accumulate to even become a pilot in the first place. And they come to Air Canada with experience. So again, we're asking Air Canada to recognize that,” she said.

Hudy spoke with CP24 from ALPA’s Toronto strike centre headquarters, where a number of union workers could be seen coordinating travel plans with Air Canada pilots across the globe should the strike take effect.

“We need to make sure we know where our pilots are if Air Canada can't get them home. We'll certainly make sure we can get them home and take care of them, and then make sure everyone knows what our next steps are after that,” Hudy said.

Last month, the union and the airline entered into a 21-day cooling-off period, during which the union could not go on strike.

Air Canada said some activities related to a potential strike would need to start as early Sept. 13, including the cancellation of some holiday packages and the grounding of some aircraft.

If operations do shut down completely on Wednesday, Air Canada estimates it will take between seven to 10 days to resume normal operations.

“Air Canada believes there is still time to reach an agreement with our pilot group, provided ALPA moderates its wage demands which far exceed average Canadian wage increases,” Michael Rousseau, president and CEO of Air Canada, said in a news release on Monday.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce and a number of other business groups are set to hold an event in Ottawa today to urge the government to intervene after calling for binding arbitration in an open letter.

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With files from The Canadian Press