An ongoing labor dispute between Air Canada and its 10,000 flight attendants is wreaking havoc for half a million travelers and counting.
The labor strike, which began over the weekend, has grounded flights — 700 per day — and left customers stranded, many of them with few options to complete their travels. On Monday, a labor relations board declared the strike illegal and ordered the union to have its members return to work.
But the union said that it would continue to defy the government’s order. “We will not turn our backs on these workers,” said Mark Hancock, the national president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees. “We will do whatever it takes to get them a collective agreement.”
‘You feel like you’re at their mercy’
The airline began rebooking flights ahead of the shutdown, but problems are compounding as cancellations continue. Air Canada estimated on Monday that the labor dispute had resulted in canceled flights for 500,000 passengers, or about 130,000 per day.
Jo-Anne Mazurat-Orlesky, who was on a trip to Toronto with her son when the flight attendants went on strike, was scheduled to fly home to Winnipeg on Sunday, normally a two-and-a-half-hour flight. On Saturday evening she received an email that their flight was canceled. Another email followed several hours later informing her that Air Canada couldn’t rebook her flight.
“They left us in limbo,” said Ms. Mazurat-Orlesky, who had booked her flights through Expedia. “There were no other steps other than to request a refund.”
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The post Frustrations Mount for 500,000 Passengers Affected by Air Canada Strike appeared first on New York Times.
