How fast will Air Canada flights resume as strike ends?

The strike at Air Canada by its flight attendants is over after the two parties reached an agreement, but the airline is warning it could still take time to resume operations.

With the strike by the union representing Air Canada’s flight attendants ending, Canadians are awaiting the resumption of flights after cancellations hit more than 500,000 travellers over recent days.

The union and the company announced on Tuesday morning that a tentative agreement was reached and that the airline would gradually restart its operations the same day.

Mark Nasr, Air Canada‘s chief operations officer, told Global News that mainline and Air Canada Rouge flights will begin operations at 4 p.m. eastern on Tuesday.

“So today, on Tuesday, we’ll operate about 53 per cent of our flights globally,” he said. “We’re going to get customers moving, and that will ramp up gradually in the days ahead.”

Nasr said it could take up to seven to 10 days before everything is back to normal, and flights will be operating both domestically and internationally.

“Those are critical for two reasons,” he said. “We’ve got to get the crews abroad so that they can get their rest and come back because, right now, all of our crews are in Canada.”

There will still be cancellations over the course of the next week even as flights resume, Nasr said.

The airline says only people with confirmed bookings whose flights are operating should go to the airport, while those with cancelled flights will be offered the option of a full refund or future travel credit.