Air Canada strikes: Tourists stranded as 10,000 flight attendants walk out

Tourists have had their travel plans plunged into chaos as Air Canada suspends all operations amid a huge flight attendant strike.

More than 10,000 flight attendants for the major Canadian airlinewalked out early on Saturday after the airlines and union representing the workers failed to reach a deal. The airlines 700 flights per day were immediately cancelled after the industrial action started - including some flights to and from the UK.

Passengers around the world were left stranded and scrambling for options during the peak summer travel season, as 130,000 people could be impacted for each day the industrial fallout continues. It comes after a plane passenger punches flight attendant after she makes simple request.

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A bitter contract fight between Canada's largest airline and the union representing 10,000 of its flight attendants escalated on Friday as the union turned down the airline's request to enter into government-directed arbitration. This would eliminate its right to strike and allow a third-party mediator to decide the terms of a new contract.

Flight attendants walked off the job around 1am local time on Saturday. Around the same time, Air Canada said it would begin locking flight attendants out of airports.

All Air Canada flights from Heathrow Airport have been cancelled today, plunging UK flyers into chaos too. Montreal resident Alex Laroche, 21, and his girlfriend had been saving since Christmas for their European vacation. Now their £4,200 ($8,000) trip with non-refundable lodging is on the line as they wait to hear from Air Canada about the fate of their Saturday night flight to Nice, France.

Laroche said he considered booking new flights with a different carrier, but he said most of them are nearly full and cost more than double the £1,600 ($3,000) they paid for their original tickets. He said: "At this point, it’s just a waiting game."

The flyer said he was initially upset over the union’s decision to go on strike, but that he had a change of heart after reading about the key issues at the centre of the contract negotiations. Laroche said: "Their wage is barely liveable."

Canada's Federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu met with both the airline and union on Friday night and urged them to work harder to them to reach a deal "once and for all". Hajdu said: "It is unacceptable that such little progress has been made. Canadians are counting on both parties to put forward their best efforts."

Pouliot, the spokesman for the union, said earlier that the union had a meeting with Hajdu and representatives from Air Canada on Friday evening. In an email, he wrote: "CUPE has engaged with the mediator to relay our willingness to continue bargaining — despite the fact that Air Canada has not countered our last two offers since Tuesday. We’re here to bargain a deal, not to go on strike."

It is not clear how many days the airline's planes will stay grounded, but Air Canada Chief Operating Officer Mark Nasr has said it could take up to a week to fully restart operations once a tentative deal is reached. Passengers whose travel is impacted will be eligible to request a full refund on the airline’s website or mobile app, according to Air Canada.

The airline said it would also offer alternative travel options through other Canadian and foreign airlines when possible. But it warned that it could not guarantee immediate rebooking because flights on other airlines are already full "due to the summer travel peak".

Air Canada and the Canadian Union of Public Employees have been in contract talks for about eight months, but they have yet to reach a tentative deal. Both sides say they remain far apart on the issue of pay and the unpaid work flight attendants do when planes aren’t in the air.

The airline’s latest offer included a 38% increase in total compensation, including benefits and pensions over four years, that it said "would have made our flight attendants the best compensated in Canada". But the union pushed back, saying the proposed 8% raise in the first year didn’t go far enough because of inflation.