Air Canada has contingency plans to suspend all flying “through an orderly wind down of operations” if a threatened strike by pilots goes ahead. The flight crew are demanding more pay, aligning them more closely with their US counterparts.
After 15 months of pay negotiation, the Air Line Pilots Association (Alpa) is expected to call out Air Canada’s 5,200 pilots from Wednesday 18 September.
“The travel plans of hundreds of thousands of Canadians are hanging in the balance,” says Air Canada president and chief executive, Michael Rousseau.
The union says: “We’re operating under a decade-old contract, while inflation in Canada has surged, leaving our pay far behind the rising cost of living and the pay of our industry peers. It’s time for a contract that recognises our contributions to Air Canada.”
But the airline says: “The average Air Canada pilot’s income has increased by more than twice the rate of inflation. A pilot who was with Air Canada in 2014, at the start of the current contract, has seen an hourly rate increase of 65 per cent.”
The airline says its captains were paid a minimum of C$215,075 (£121,000) last year, with some earning up to 63 per cent more, for an average of 13.3 days’ work per month or less.
Air Canada is preparing for a complete closure of its “mainline” operations as well as the lower-cost Rouge brand.
These are the key questions and answers.
How far are the two sides apart?
Some distance. Air Canada says it has “worked hard and in good faith over 14 months to reach a new collective agreement”. The carrier says it will be “the best-paying airline in the country for pilots once a new collective agreement is reached”. But it says it must balance this against “the associated cost and the willingness of customers to pay for this increase through higher airfares, and its responsibilities to its shareholders as a publicly traded company”.
The pilots’ union, Alpa, has appealed for public support. The chair of the Canadian part of Alpa, first officer Charlene Hudy, told CBC: “Canadians need to understand that we do not want to be in this position.
“We take our jobs incredibly seriously. There’s a lot of responsibility riding on our shoulders when we get into the flight deck.”
The union insists: “We are approaching negotiations with a…
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