Travelers in Canada and abroad rushed to secure flights on Sunday after hitting Air Canada’s flight attendees challenged a federal order to return to work, abruptly stopping the airline’s plans to resume operations.
Lila Rousseux, who was scheduled to fly home with her family from Zurich to Toronto on Sunday, told CBC News that spent all Saturday stuck to her phone to receive news about whether her flight would be canceled.
At 12:30 am on Sunday, he was informed that it was.
“I spent an hour and a half on the phone with the agent … a lot of turbulence,” Rousseaux said.
“There was a lot of inflexibility in terms of what can be done,” he said, adding that his suggestions to take a train to Amsterdam to take a plane or fly directly to the United States before driving through the border were rejected by the agent.
Air Canada says that he plans to restart flights on Monday night after the strike hostesses challenged the order to return to federal government work on Sunday morning. For Lila Rousseaux, Air Canada client for a long time, the unemployment of weekend work has resulted in the inflexibility of the airline while she and her family try to redirect their way home.
Rousseaux said he finally reserved a “horrible” flight overnight to Atlanta, lamenting that he is no longer sitting with children.
“The anguish in my family is very acute,” he said.
Ottawa moved to intervene in the labor dispute on Saturday, less than 12 hours after the strike and blockade entered into force, with the Minister of Federal Jobs, Patty Hajdu, saying that he was invoking section 107 of the Canada Labor Code to ask the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) to send to both parties to a binding arbitration and order the airline and order the airline Flight assistants to work back in time.
Subsequently, the Montreal headquarters announced the early morning of Sunday that planned to resume flights at night, but only a few hours later, the union that represents more than 10,000 flight attendees said in a statement that the members would remain on strike, sinking those plans and inciting Air Canada to cancel about 240 flights.
Hundreds of Air Canada flight attendees demonstrated outside Vancouver International Airport on Saturday. The strike caused a warning for passengers to avoid the airport unless they have confirmed a reserve in a different airline. Shaurya Kshatri informs.
At Vancouver International Airport, the passengers remained in long lines to obtain the latest updates on their delayed and canceled flights, since the workers outside demonstrated with signs reading: “The unpaid work will not fly.”
Chi Ehis told the Canadian press that he is having to pay additional $ 2,000 to meet his family in Florida on vacation after his flight was canceled on Sunday morning.
Instead of flying directly from Vancouver, he is now taking a bus to Seattle before taking another more expensive flight.
“I can’t shout. I have to find out what to do,” Ehis said, adding that his plane ticket costs $ 1,500.
Mark Carcasole from CBC talks to Moxey Munch on tips for Air Canada customers
In Toronto, Khalid Muhammadi told CBC News that he flew from Dubai on his way to Edmonton, but now he is caught at Pearson’s international airport.
“Westjet is asking eight billion; what are I supposed to do?” said.
Muhammadi expressed frustrations with the federal government for not resolving the labor dispute.
“You knew that a strike was approaching … do your job.”
Air Canada has said that passengers whose flights are canceled will be offered a complete refund or the opportunity to change their travel plans without a rate.
However, he said that according to the passenger protection regulations of the Canadian airline, customers are not eligible for compensation for the expenses incurred during travel delays considered outside the airline control.
“Customers in Canada are not eligible for compensation for flights, meals, hotels, hotels or other incidental expenses of delays or canceled by situations outside the control of the carrier, such as a work interruption,” said the airline.
Air Canada said in a press release that his flights would resume Monday night, although a notice on his reserve page said that all the flights of Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge were canceled until further notice.
