WestJet calls on feds for ‘urgent clarity’ around strike after 800 flights cancelled
CTV
A strike by WestJet plane mechanics forced the airline to cancel hundreds more flights on Sunday, upending the plans of roughly 110,000 travellers over the Canada Day long weekend and prompting the carrier to demand action from the federal government.
A strike by WestJet plane mechanics forced the airline to cancel hundreds more flights on Sunday, upending the plans of roughly 110,000 travellers over the Canada Day long weekend and prompting the carrier to demand action from the federal government.
Some 680 workers, whose daily inspections and repairs are essential to airline operations, walked off the job on Friday evening despite a directive for binding arbitration from the labour minister.
"WestJet is in receipt of a binding arbitration order and awaits urgent clarity from the government that a strike and arbitration cannot exist simultaneously; this is something they have committed to address and like all Canadians we are waiting," WestJet Airlines president Diederik Pen said in a release Sunday.
Since Thursday, WestJet has cancelled 829 flights scheduled between then and Monday — the busiest travel weekend of the season — the carrier said.
The vast majority of Sunday's trips were called off as WestJet pared down its 180-plane fleet to 32 active aircraft and topped the global list for cancellations among major airlines over the weekend.
Trevor Temple-Murray was one of thousands of customers scrambling to rebook after their trips were scrapped less than a day in advance.
"We’ll just have to wait it out," said the resident of Lethbridge, Alta., who was on hold in the parking lot of the Victoria airport trying to get a plane to Calgary, his wife and two-year-old son beside him in the car.
