WestJet has cancelled nearly 700 flights as of Sunday, upending plans for close to 100,000 passengers as an unexpected strike by plane mechanics entered its third day on the busiest travel weekend of the season.
Some 680 workers, whose daily inspections and repairs are essential to airline operations, walked off the job on Friday evening despite a directive for binding arbitration from the federal labour minister.
Since Thursday, tracking service FlightAware shows WestJet has cancelled 687 flights scheduled to fly between then and the end of the Canada Day long weekend.
As of Sunday morning, 77 per cent of the day’s trips had been called off, with WestJet topping the global list for cancellations among major airlines Saturday and Sunday.
Travellers took to social media to express their frustration — sometimes in colourful language.
One customer said the airline informed them only at 11:12 p.m. on Saturday that their next-day flight out of Las Vegas was cancelled, calling the last-minute move “scumbag behaviour.”
He was one of many passengers hit with cancellations a half-day before departure. Others said they could not get through to customer service.
Both the airline and the Airplane Mechanics Fraternal Association have accused the other side of refusing to negotiate in good faith.
WestJet Airlines president Diederik Pen has stressed what he calls the “continued reckless actions” of a union making “blatant efforts” to disrupt Canadians’ travel plans, while the association claimed the Calgary-based company has refused to respond to its latest counterproposal.
In an update to members Sunday, it said mechanics were “the victim of WestJet’s virulent PR campaign that you are scofflaws,” citing “calumnies” against workers around their right to strike.
The job action comes after union members voted overwhelmingly to reject a tentative deal from WestJet in mid-June and following two weeks of tense talks between the two parties.
As the clock ticked down toward a Friday strike deadline, the impasse prompted Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan to step in, mandating that WestJet and the union undertake binding arbitration headed by the country’s labour tribunal.
That process typically sidesteps a work stoppage. WestJet certainly thought so, stating the union had “confirmed they will abide by the direction.”
“Given this, a strike or lockout will not occur, and the airline will no longer proceed in cancelling flights,” the airline said Thursday.
The mechanics took a different view. The union negotiating committee said it would “comply with the minister’s order and directs its members to refrain from any unlawful job action.” Less than 24 hours later, workers were on the picket lines.
A decision from the Canada Industrial Relations Board seemed to affirm the legality of their actions regardless of protocols around arbitration, a process that typically averts work stoppages rather than starting them.
“The board finds that the ministerial referral does not have the effect of suspending the right to strike or lockout,” the tribunal wrote Friday.
O’Regan said the next day the board’s ruling was “clearly inconsistent” with the direction he provided, but later added he respected the body’s independence. He met with both sides Saturday evening.
“I told them they needed to work together with the Canada Industrial Relations Board to resolve their differences and get their first agreement done,” he said in a social media post.
However, O’Regan has broad authority under the Canada Labour Code.
Though his initial directive to the tribunal for binding arbitration may have presumed a strike was off the table due to precedent, the labour minister could take a range of steps to “secure industrial peace and to promote conditions favourable to the settlement of industrial disputes,” the legislation states.
“To those ends the minister may … direct the board to do such things as the minister deems necessary.”
Both parties were set to meet Sunday morning, the union said.
Not everyone was vexed by the weekend’s labour turbulence.
“We are seeing a huge surge in bookings, presumably from passengers scrambling to save their long weekends,” said Flair Airlines spokeswoman Kim Bowie.