WestJet cancels more than 400 flights over strike

TORONTO

Canada’s second largest airline, WestJet, said it canceled 407 flights affecting 49,000 passengers after the maintenance workers union announced it went on strike.

The Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association said its members started to strike on June 28 evening because the airline’s “unwillingness to negotiate with the union” made it inevitable.

The surprise strike affecting international and domestic flights came after the federal government issued a ministerial order for binding arbitration on June 27. That followed two weeks of turbulent discussions with the union on a new deal.

WestJet flies 198 commercial aircraft to more than 100 destinations in nearly 30 countries.

The airline’s CEO, Alexis von Hoensbroech, put the blame for the situation squarely on what he said was a “rogue union from the U.S.” that was trying to make inroads in Canada.

Von Hoensbroech said that, as far as the airline was concerned, bargaining with the union had come to an end once the government directed the dispute to binding arbitration.

“This makes a strike totally absurd because the reason you actually do a strike is because you need to exercise pressure on the bargaining table,” he said. “If there is no bargaining table it makes no sense, there shouldn’t be a strike.”

He added the union had rejected a contract offer that would have made the airline’s mechanics the “best-paid in the country.”

Sean McVeigh, a WestJet aircraft maintenance engineer picketing on June 29 at Toronto Pearson International Airport Terminal 3, said the strike is an attempt to force the airline to return to a “respectful negotiation.”