The union representing flight attendants for Air Canada commenced a strike on Saturday, and the effects are being felt at airports across the world, including LAX.
According to reports, more than 20 Air Canada flights that were supposed to take off from LAX by midday Saturday didn’t do so. The same was said for a further two Air Canada flights out of John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana.
More than 10,000 flight attendants at Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge, the company’s low-cost subsidiary, began the strike at 1:30 a.m. Eastern Time on Saturday. The reason behind it is a dispute tied to contract negotiations over unpaid work and low wages, according to a statement from the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).
After receiving a 72-hour notice of the strike on Aug. 13, Air Canada began reducing its schedule of about 700 daily flights but said that due to the disruptions, some 130,000 customers will be impacted each day the strike lasts, the airline said in a statement.
Hours after the strike officially took effect, passengers were already stranded at LAX, including Julia, a woman from Milan, Italy, who spent two weeks in the U.S. as part of a travel group. But instead of getting back home on Saturday, she found herself stuck at the airport.
“Right now, we don’t know anything at all,” she told KTLA 5’s Carlos Herrera at 6:30 a.m. “I’m sure [Air Canada workers] are doing their best, but I don’t know what’s happening.”
Another woman said that she received a cancellation notice for her Saturday flight from LAX to Vancouver on Friday; however, when she tried to contact the airline for more information, she didn’t get an answer.
“I tried to contact them but their phones were not working,” said Hannah Nunez. “So I decided to come here to try and talk to someone…they put me on American Airlines.”
A third woman encountered a similar problem and did the same thing, but got a different answer.
“I was on hold for three hours,” said Mary Ann Barros. “So, I told my husband to drop me off at the airport and maybe someone can help me from Air Canada customer service, and they said they can’t.”
As Saturday morning progressed, it seemed as though the news of the cancellations had made the rounds at LAX, as the Air Canada terminal appeared to get progressively emptier.
The Canadian government ended up shutting down the strike after about 12 hours. According to the New York Times, the walkout ended “with the imposition of binding arbitration, but getting travel back to normal will take days.”
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