Wednesday August 20, 2025 | NATIONAL NEWS
Economic sector analysis | by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
Air Canada flights are moving again as the employer and their flight attendants have negotiated a deal, announced yesterday.
The 10,000 Air Canada unionized flight attendants have ended their strike. Flights are resuming.
Demand for better pay:
This follows a short labour strike by flight attendants who were — in particular — seeking pay for pre/post flight hours worked.
Air Canada says this is setting a “new industry standard”, as Mark Nasr, Executive Vice President & Chief Operations Officer, Air Canada, told TV media yesterday.
The flight attendants — represented by CUPE — wanted 100% of their regular in-flight hourly wage honoured for pre-boarding and deplaning work. At this point the corporation has offered 50%, with an increase of 5% per year thereafter.
Air Canada flight attendants who have less than five years experience with the company will get at 12% pay increase; flight attendants with over five years employment with Air Canada will get a pay increase of 8%.
Political factor:
At outlined by Island Social Trends last week, the Conservatives tabled a private members bill in 2021 to address this issue of non-pay for flight attendants before and after flights. Bill C-409 – An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code got first reading in June 2024.
The Liberals now, under Jobs and Families Minister Patty Hadju, are saying that unpaid work should not be happening in Canada.
Expect increases in air travel costs:
As Island Social Trends pointed out in recent days — in the short term, the employer will have to absorb the new operating costs of paying flight attendants more than before.
But now that Air Canada has set a trend to pay for pre/post-flight labour (which the public supports, as does now the federal government), the entire air travel sector will sooner than later have to increase their ticket prices as more companies follow suit with fair pay for their workers.
University of Toronto employment relations professor Rafael Gomez said in national media yesterday, that “market systems determine prices, not the cost of labour”. But it is unlikely that airlines will (or can) bear a structural operating cost increase like a substantive wage hike, without passing that along to their customers.
===== RELATED:
- Air Canada flight attendants ignore back to work order (August 17, 2025)
- Jobs minister orders Air Canada flight attendants back to work (August 16, 2025)
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