Canada’s largest airline and its flight attendants are back across the table this week, but this time in a hearing room rather than at the bargaining table.
An arbitrator has been called in to resolve wage isssues left unresolved after last summer’s dramatic labour showdown. The process now underway marks the final chapter of negotiations that began in December 2024, erupted into an August 2025 strike, and produced a tentative deal that flight attendants then almost unanimously rejected over pay.
The dispute boiled over in mid‑August 2025, when flight attendants represented by the Air Canada Component of the Canadian Union of Public Employees walked off the job in defiance of a federal back‑to‑work order. Mainline and Rouge operations were shut down for three days, disrupting thousands of passengers.
With flights cancelled and picket lines at major airports, Ottawa intervened, and a federal mediator helped broker a tentative agreement announced on 19AUG.
That deal improved pensions, benefits, and working conditions, and for the first time, carved out separate “ground pay” for duties performed while aircraft are not in the air, something the union had campaigned on for years.
On wages, Air Canada’s offer front‑loaded increases: most junior flight attendants were promised a 12% raise in the first year, while more senior crew would receive 8%, followed by annual bumps of 3%, 2.5% and 2.75% over the remainder of the four-year term.
When the tentative deal went to a ratification vote in late August and early September, CUPE announced that 99.1% of voting members rejected the wage offer.
Under arrangements worked out during mediation, both sides agreed that if the tentative agreement was rejected, flight attendants would not be allowed to strike again, and any unresolved wage issues would first go to mediation and, failing that, to binding arbitration.
That brings the story to this week’s hearings. CUPE has begun the first day of arbitration with Air Canada before arbitrator Paula Knopf, aiming to set final wage rates for more than 10,000 flight attendants at Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge.
The union says the hearings will not only determine salary scales but also give members a clear account of how talks unfolded between December 2024 and August 2025.
Arbitration is binding: both sides present evidence and arguments on appropriate pay levels, the arbitrator reviews bargaining history, economic conditions, and industry benchmarks, and then issues a decision that becomes part of the collective agreement.
With further strikes or lockouts off the table, flight attendants are now waiting for a legal ruling that will close one of the most contentious labour disputes in Air Canada’s recent history.
