Air Canada CEO sees big gap between airline offer and striking unions demand

By Allison Lampert, Rajesh Kumar Singh and Promit Mukherjee

MONTREAL (GWN) -Air Canada’s CEO on Monday defended the airline’s offer of a 38% enhance in compensation to striking flight attendants but said there was a big gap in contrast to the union’s demand and didn’t offer a path to return to negotiations.

CEO Mike Rousseau’s feedback to GWN adopted the striking union’s refusal of a federal labor board’s order to return to work. That refusal has created a three-way standoff between the company, staff, and the federal government, and raised the stakes in a battle that has disrupted flights for a whole bunch of 1000’s of vacationers during vacationer season.

Canada’s Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu told CBC’s “Power and Politics” on Monday afternoon that nothing prevents the 2 sides from returning to the desk and negotiating an settlement, including they may also decide for mediation.

Flight attendants need greater wages and to be paid for time spent boarding passengers and other duties on the ground.

“At this point in time, the union’s proposals are much higher than the 40%. And so we need to find a path to bridge that gap,” Rousseau said, without suggesting what that course of can be. “We’re always open to listen and have a conversation,” he said.

A pacesetter of the union on strike against Air Canada said on Monday he would risk jail time quite than enable cabin crews to be compelled back to work by a federal labor board.

Rousseau said he was amazed the union was not following the law.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees said the strike would continue until the service negotiates on wages and unpaid work, even after the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) declared the strike illegal.

“If it means folks like me going to jail, then so be it. If it means our union being fined, then so be it. We’re looking for a solution here,” said Mark Hancock, CUPE national president, at a press convention after a deadline by the board to return to work expired with no union motion to end the strike.

The union has said Air Canada’s offer only accounts for 17.2% greater wages over 4 years.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney pleaded for a decision. A home tourism growth has helped restrict the financial harm from tariffs imposed by Canada’s largest commerce accomplice, the United States, and Air Canada is the nation’s largest service.

“We are in a situation where literally hundreds of thousands of Canadians and visitors to our country are being disrupted by this action,” Carney told reporters in Ottawa. “I urge both parties to resolve this as quickly as possible.”

Hancock said the union has not heard from the roles minister or Air Canada since Friday.

The third day of a strike by more than 10,000 flight attendants has stranded passengers and led Air Canada to droop its third-quarter and full-year 2025 steering, sending shares down almost 3%. The airline has earned decrease revenue due to fewer bookings to the United States.

The service usually carries 130,000 people daily and is an element of the global Star Alliance of airways.

Michael Lynk, professor emeritus of law at Western University in London, Ontario, said there are provisions in the Canada Labour Code that give the board and the court the proper to issue fines and sanctions against the union and against particular person staff.

UNPAID WORK

Crew are principally paid when planes are shifting, sparking calls for by unions in the U.S. and Canada to change the model, and producing some vocal help from passengers on social media.

While passengers have largely expressed help for the flight attendants, some are growing weary of the uncertainty.

Danna Wu, 35, said she and her husband can have no alternative but to drive from Winnipeg to Vancouver if the strike persists for a visa appointment. Although she believes Air Canada ought to pay its attendants more, the University of Manitoba grasp’s pupil added, “It’s not responsible to strike and leave thousands of passengers in such chaos.”

Air Canada’s calls for on unpaid work comply with beneficial properties lately received by flight attendants in the United States. New labor agreements at American Airlines and Alaska Airlines legally require carriers to start the clock for paying flight attendants when passengers are boarding.

The authorities’s choices to drive an end to the strike embrace asking courts to implement the order to return to work and searching for an expedited listening to.

The minority authorities may also attempt to cross laws that would need the help of political rivals and approval in both homes of parliament, that are on break until September 15, but has so far been cautious.

“The government will be very reticent to be too heavy-handed because in Canada, the Supreme Court has ruled that governments have to be very careful when they take away the right to strike, even for public sector workers that may be deemed essential,” said Dionne Pohler, a professor of dispute decision at Cornell University.

The earlier Canadian authorities intervened last 12 months to head off rail and dock strikes that threatened to cripple the financial system, but it’s extremely uncommon for a union to defy a CIRB order.

“If you’re going to fine us or you’re going to try and take us on financially, then you can take us to court, and we can see where that plays out,” said Hancock.

(Reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal, Promit Mukherjee in Ottawa, Ryan Patrick Jones in Toronto, and Rajesh Kumar Singh in Chicago. Additional reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Drefuss and Doyinsola Oladipo in New York, Kyaw Soe Oo in Toronto and Aishwarya Jain in Bengaluru; Writing by Peter Henderson and Caroline Stauffer; Editing by Frank McGurty, Marguerita Choy, Arun Koyyur, Rod Nickel)