Air Canada’s 10,000 flight attendants have overwhelmingly rejected the wage terms of a tentative four-year contract, leaving compensation as the sole unresolved issue in talks with the carrier. Under a process the parties agreed to in August, the wage dispute now moves to mediation and, if needed, binding arbitration.
The pact also bars any strike or lockout, so Air Canada’s schedule will continue operating during the next phase of bargaining.
The tally, announced by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), saw 99.1% of voting members oppose the company’s wage offer, with participation of 94.6%, according to the union.
CUPE said the proposal failed to address what members describe as chronic underpayment relative to time spent on the job and rising living costs. “Air Canada never bargained in good faith on wages,” Wesley Lesosky, president of CUPE’s Air Canada Component, said in a prepared statement.
The rejected offer was part of a broader tentative agreement brokered on Aug. 19 that ended a disruptive mid-August strike after the Canada Industrial Relations Board ordered attendants back to work at the government’s request.
Anticipating the possibility of a failed ratification, the company and union built a backstop that sends only the wage piece to mediation, then arbitration if talks stall, while leaving other negotiated improvements intact. Air Canada reiterated that “no labour disruption can be initiated,” adding it is “fully committed to the mediation and arbitration process.”
What changed in the tentative deal
The company’s package included what Air Canada described as a modernization of pay for time worked on the ground. That refers to duties such as boarding and deplaning, which have historically been compensated only indirectly through flight-time rates.
The tentative agreement introduced specific ground-duty compensation alongside “improvements to wages, pensions and benefits,” the company said. CUPE acknowledged partial gains on ground pay but argued they were not enough to address unpaid work.
CUPE detailed the wage ladder that members voted down: a first-year increase of 12% for Rouge attendants and mainline attendants with five or fewer years of service, and 8% for mainline attendants with six or more years. In the remaining years of the proposed four-year term, across-the-board annual increases would have been 3%, 2.5%, and 2.75%.
The union framed the package as insufficient, contending entry-level and mainline monthly earnings would still sit below Canada’s federal minimum when measured against a standard 40-hour week.
Saturday’s vote closes a volatile chapter that put the compensation model for cabin crews in the spotlight. North American flight attendants are pressing for “start-to-finish” pay that covers all duty time, not just when the aircraft is moving. The issue has been central in U.S. contract fights and is now entangled with Ottawa’s controversial use of Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code, which allows the federal government to refer disputes to binding arbitration to “secure industrial peace.”
Air Canada has repeatedly pointed to the labour board’s orders when recounting the August sequence and emphasized its plan to resolve the remaining wage questions at the table.
What happens next is procedural but consequential
Mediators will attempt to bridge the gap on base rates and ground-time compensation. If they fail, an arbitrator will impose terms for the wage article, creating a floor that would apply through the balance of the contract. Other non-wage improvements negotiated in August are expected to carry through.
For investors and travelers, the key near-term takeaway is operational continuity; the dispute will be resolved in a forum that keeps aircraft flying and limits surprise disruptions while the parties argue their case.
The broader context matters for labor relations across the sector. A decisive rejection signals that high turnout bargaining units can push for richer wage catch-up even after a strike settlement, especially when cost-of-living and unpaid-work concerns dominate.
For Air Canada, the task is to balance cost control with service reliability after a summer of strain. For CUPE, the mandate is clear: secure a wage framework that recognizes the full scope of cabin-crew work. The next several weeks will show whether mediation can deliver that outcome or whether an arbitrator will set the number.
