A strike by WestJet flight attendants is underway after last-minute negotiations failed to lead to a new collective agreement.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) local 8125, which represents about 4,400 WestJet flight attendants, confirmed its members were on strike.
“Our bargaining committee worked until the strike deadline last night to try and get a deal with WestJet,” Cameron Jones, reporting secretary for CUPE local 8125, said in a press conference Sunday in Calgary. “Unfortunately, that wasn’t able to happen.”
He went on to say that despite no deal being reached and its members now on strike, the bargaining committee was back at the table to try and reach an agreement.
The job action comes after the union issued a strike notice last week, which saw the company issue its own lockout notice.
WestJet began winding down its jet flights on Saturday, and officially suspended all air travel bookings due to the job action. According to the company, the suspension goes until Aug. 5, though if a deal isn’t reached before then it’s expected to last longer.
As of Sunday, WestJet says approximately 600 flights have been cancelled so far.
The airline says Encore flights continue to operate.
WestJet CEO Alexis von Hoensbroech said in a statement the airline was “disappointed” by the strike.
“Our focus remains on staying available for the union to reach an agreement,” he wrote. “We presented a proposal that would have set a new standard for cabin crew in Canada.”
That offer was outlined in a separate news release, and included a 13 per cent pay increase effective Oct. 1 and retroactive to Jan. 1, 2026. This would be followed by 2.5 per cent increases annually to 2029.
The dispute centres largely on compensation for work performed on the ground, including boarding passengers, completing safety checks and managing delays.
“The bargaining committee is trying to close that gap to get a deal that we believe is fair and that we can bring back to the membership,” Jones said.
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The offer put forward by WestJet, outlined in the news release also included what it called a “duty pay premium.” The airline defined this as a payment for all duty hours, “additional pay for all hours worked designed to solve the union’s claim of unpaid work,” which it claims is equivalent to another 12 per cent salary increase.
Barry Eidlin, a sociology professor and labour expert at McGill University, said WestJet flight attendants are generally paid only while an aircraft is in the air, even though delays have become increasingly common.
Federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu said in a statement early Sunday morning that it was a “disappointing development.”
“A strike or lockout does not mean an agreement can’t be reached, the expectation is that parties can and should come to an agreement at the bargaining table,” Hajdu said.
Asked whether he believes the government will step in as they did last year during the Air Canada strike, Jones said yes and said the bargaining team is still at the table.
“The goal is that we’re expecting the federal government to protect our right to strike and allow bargaining to happen at the bargaining table as it’s designed to do under the Canada Labour Code,” he said.
What happens when the strike endS?
Even when the strike ends, flights won’t necessarily be in the air the minute it’s over.
Ian Lee, a professor of management at the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University, said there’s a process before and after it ends.
“It’s very, very disruptive because they incur all kinds of costs,” he told Global News. “They’ve got to store the planes, and when the strike ends, people don’t send the plane back out on the runway.”
He noted the airline is subject to “elaborate” safety rules and regulations, including rechecking every plane and its parts.
How could my upcoming flight be affected?
The Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR), set by the Government of Canada and administered by the Canadian Transportation Agency, ensure travellers are given alternative travel arrangements or compensation where applicable, but the specifics depend on who is making the changes and when.
According to the WestJet, people with travel booked between July 30 and Aug. 6 will be able to make a one-time change or cancellation at no additional cost.
Should a strike lead to flight delays or cancellations, “impacted guests will be refunded or reaccommodated, as applicable.”
As required by the air passenger rights legislation, passengers “may be eligible for compensation if a cancellation results in a delay which causes you to arrive 3 or more hours late at your final destination.”
Under the terms of the rules, if WestJet makes a cancellation or schedule change as the result of a labour disruption, that is considered to be outside of the carrier’s control and triggers a specific set of rights that must be met for passengers depending on the circumstances.
If a flight is cancelled or delayed by three hours or more because of a strike, WestJet must provide clear information in a timely manner and passengers must be offered alternate travel arrangements. Those arrangements may also require the air carrier to provide meal vouchers and accommodations.
According to the APPR, the airline must rebook a passenger free of charge on the next available flight operated by WestJet or one of its partners departing within 48 hours of the original departure time.
If it cannot, WestJet must book a passenger on the next available flight operated by a competitor that WestJet does not have an interline agreement or the passenger can request a refund of any unused portion of the ticket.
Barry Choi, a travel expert at the moneywehave.com, told Global News those options may not work for everyone.
“The problem is we’re already hearing reports of people getting a new flight that doesn’t work for them, it’s going to be cancelled against because maybe it’s later in the day or tomorrow morning,” he said. “People have places to be and they’re certainly concerned but overall, they might have to take matters into their own hands.”
That comes at a risk though. Under the APPR, whether cancellations are made before or after a strike occurs, if a passenger decides they want to cancel or modify their booking before WestJet cancels their flight, they’re no longer protected by the terms of the legislation if the flight is cancelled after.
—with files from Global News’ Prisha Dev and Ariel Rabinovitch
The world is changing and unions no longer fit the needs of our economy and workforce. The fact of them matter is these are low-skill jobs and should be paid accordingly, not just raises after raises. The rest of us customers end up paying more because of those raises. Look at any unionized enterprise and the same picture emerges. People standing around, talking, texting, but very little working. What makes this worse is Conservative types support that type of work ethnic.
Carney and Hajdu have completely dropped the ball on this. It seems anything with economic consequences has priority with this regime.
So Benoit. You praise Carney for doing an amazing job and yet you have degrading remarks about the fine flight attendants at WestJet that help to keep passengers safe. I value a flight attendant any day over a parasitic politician.
Company purportedly wants 35 hours of free work per month from each and every flight attendant which is untenable.
Corporations want free labour, and some posters agree with this. I’m sure they wouldn’t work for free. And some posters make fun of flight attendants, who are mostly women. That’s a problem.
What is it a flight attendant does anyway ? Says hello when you board and goodbye when you depart you could train a monkey to do that. When the plane is in flight they hide behind the curtain in their little den, check washroom supplies and bring water round every three hours. There just glorified janitors!!!
OK let’s put this into perspective the stewards point of assembly has to be the aeroplane just like any other job you get paid when you get to work.
These union slackers probably want to be paid from home back to home. There getting paid for the hours they work I don’t know what they expect or why they think they are any different. Back to work or offload them and employ someone who wants a good paying easy job. It’s that simple.
Benoit. Your post is laughable. Carney group has solved absolutely nothing. If they were on their game there would have been no strike at all.
The only people wo are hurting are the ones stuck away from home! Settle this and reimburse all the
extra expenses! These stikes have to stop! Mediation is ALWAYS the answer!
The Carney government would have even greater success at solving issues like this, and trade, if the Poilievre conservatives weren’t undermining them. For example, there have been suggestions by some that conservative MP’s have been meeting secretly with members of the Trump administration re trade.
I guess Carney and his crew didn’t solve the problem after the AC stole as they promised they would. A year later, the same issue comes up with a different airline. Carney has not produced any tangible results in over 16 months as PM.
@ Benoit. Carney has not solved anything. They were to look into this problem after the AC strike and over a year later the problem still exists. Just like Carneys big promise to get trade deal done with Trump over a year ago.
Put them on a salary…then they can be like everyone else
Glad we are in safe hands with the Carney government. They solved the Air Canada dispute with grace and aplomb. Thank gosh Poilievre, a former paperboy, isn’t in charge.
Carney regime has totally messed up on this. Bad enough the Canadian economy is on life support.
I guess some companies think workers should work free.
Why are you only reporting one side of this issue of transportation companies striking and disrupting peoples lives … I work for a multibillion company and taking away the option to strike against these companies does not help us get a fair deal… if you saw what I got for benefits compared to upper managers who don’t get dirty, pay compared to what my CEO makes with a 27% approval rating with union workers … they started negotiations at 1% increase every year of the contract well below inflation and no increase in benefits unless we pay oh and laid off members the day negotiations started… so maybe look at what WestJet upper managers are making and compare that to those who are the front line workers…
WestJet should terminate all of them effective immediately. They are overpaid as it is.
@Guess Not
Trudeau is gone , but Patty Hajdu isn’t. She is a part of the reason Canada is so weak at the moment. She should be held accountable
@Jon Wayne, news flash, keep on topic and quit dredging up the past. Trudeau is gone, the pandemic is over. You can crawl out from underneath your bed, LMAO
Hoping this ends quickly.. my son is supposed to be traveling to Japan on Aug 31st on WJ .. 🤬🤬🤬
WestJet management should be ashamed of themselves for thinking that flight attendants should only be paid from wheels up to wheels down on a flight. Why do they think that their flight attendants shouldn’t be paid for on the ground work such as boarding passengers, completing safety checks and managing delays? At one time, in my opinion WestJet was the “darling of the sky”…however not any more.
Patty Hajdu is a horrible MP. A relic of the Trudeau regime that bungled Canadas COVID response and sent out disinformation.
I blame this on Carney. They were supposed to deal with this issue with the AC strike last year. Of course, nothing has been done
On the issue of unpaid hours of work, I would not blame the company. In the past how did the union ever agree to this concept and approve a Contract.
Me thinks there is much more to this issue then the lazy media reports on.
@Richard. Respectfully, banning unions is not a free market, and indeed is an intrusion into fair bargaining. If the employer doesn’t like it, they should pay the unions more. If the unions don’t like the deal offered, they go on strike. Sounds like a free market to me.
Time to ban unions and strikes, and let markets decide. If they don’t like the pay they can leave. There are plenty of newcomers and refugees that will love the jobs.
$30 per hour for a waitress with safety training. Sounds reasonable to me. If they don’t like it find another job. There are thousands that would love $30 per hour, free flights, hotel discounts, etc.
Ok. I understand. I see. Zlfjdjkzncjdjs92837482