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Mint
4 minutes ago
- Mint
Attention Air Canada flyers! Flights to get affected as work stoppage by flight attendants may impact 130,000 passengers
Air Canada has confirmed it remains open to negotiations with its flight attendants, even as the airline prepares for potential work stoppages that could disrupt operations across the country. The Montreal-based carrier has reached a deadlock with the union representing more than 10,500 flight attendants over pay and working conditions, despite eight months of bargaining. Both the airline and the union have filed notices indicating a labour disruption could begin on Saturday. 'Abrupt work stoppages at airlines create chaos for travellers,' said Arielle Meloul-Wechsler, Air Canada's head of human resources and public affairs, during a press briefing in Toronto on Thursday. 'We remain ready to continue discussions.' The conference was briefly interrupted by flight attendants protesting with placards reading 'Unpaid work won't fly,' claiming their compensation constitutes 'poverty wages.' Air Canada expects approximately 500 mainline and Air Canada Rouge flights to be cancelled by Friday evening. From 1 AM on Saturday, all flights under the airline's direct operation will be paused, affecting more than 130,000 passengers. Cargo operations will also see delays. However, regional flights operated by third-party contractors under Air Canada Express will continue as normal. The airline has stated that affected passengers will be offered full refunds and, where possible, alternative travel arrangements via competitor airlines. Seeking a resolution, Air Canada has requested the Canadian government to mandate binding arbitration, which could compel flight attendants back to work and deliver a final settlement. Meanwhile, the union, affiliated with the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), appealed to Prime Minister Mark Carney to respect workers' rights to freely negotiate their collective agreement. Canada's Labour Minister, Patty Hajdu, urged both sides to reach a compromise. 'Deals made at the bargaining table are the best ones,' she said in a social media statement. 'I encouraged both parties to put aside differences and return to negotiations for the sake of travellers.' Air Canada has proposed increasing total compensation, including benefits and bonuses, by 25 per cent in the first year and 38 per cent over four years, along with pay for certain duties performed on the ground. Currently, flight attendants are only remunerated while the aircraft is in motion, a practice common in the airline industry. Meloul-Wechsler noted that negotiations began with CUPE demanding pay increases exceeding 100 per cent. The union, however, contends that the airline's 38 per cent offer translates to just a 17.2 per cent rise over four years and falls short of inflation and industry standards, leaving flight attendants unpaid for significant hours of work. (With inputs from Bloomberg)
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Business Standard
4 minutes ago
- Business Standard
Best of BS Opinion: India at 79: A test of resilience, reform, reckoning
India's 79th Independence Day arrives as both a celebration and a stocktake. The unity that has defined the Republic has been tested repeatedly, most recently during Operation Sindoor, when India retaliated to a terror strike in Pahalgam by targeting Pakistan-based terror and military infrastructure. The response showcased a sharper counterterrorism posture, but the moment also underlines wider challenges, notes our first editorial. India's economic strength, the fastest-growing among large economies, has lifted millions out of poverty, yet the goal of becoming a developed nation by 2047 demands sustained growth in a tougher global climate. Meanwhile, corporate governance is confronting its own reckoning. At the 2025 Annual Directors Conclave, Sebi chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey reminded independent directors they are not 'honorary appointees or friendly critics.' His warning follows the Gensol Engineering case. Similar failures at Satyam, IL&FS, Yes Bank, and Paytm Payments Bank have exposed a culture where promoter influence often overrides oversight, highlights our second editorial. With 549 voluntary resignations in FY25, including 154 this year, the environment for corporate oversight is shifting fast. K P Krishnan writes on India's leading financial regulators, RBI, Sebi, and Irdai, which continue to be led by former IAS officers, reflecting a comfort with administrative experience but also an institutional shortfall. In mature economies, leadership is drawn from academia, industry, and public administration, bringing varied perspectives. India's absence of transparent, rule-based processes has made it harder for outsiders to thrive. Implementing reforms like those in the draft Indian Financial Code could open the field and create more resilient regulatory institutions. Domestic institutional investors have overtaken foreign institutional investors in equity holdings for the first time in 25 years, with Rs 14 trillion in equities versus FIIs' Rs 10 trillion. Since 2014-15, DIIs have grown at an average 42 per cent annually, fuelled by retail participation and steady inflows. FIIs, once the dominant market movers, have seen their correlation with the Sensex fade, while DIIs now set the tone, argues Janak Raj. High valuations may keep foreign flows muted, leaving domestic money as the primary force in the market. Finally, in To Lose a War: The Fall and Rise of the Taliban, reviewed by Elliot Ackerman, veteran correspondent Jon Lee Anderson follows Afghanistan's story from the Taliban's ouster in 2001 to their return in 2021. Drawing on two decades of frontline reporting, Anderson captures early optimism, mounting insurgency, and the missteps that shaped the war's outcome. The book closes with the lesson that withdrawing from reconstruction, as in the 1980s, can invite renewed instability, a warning with resonance far beyond Afghanistan. Stay tuned!
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Business Standard
4 minutes ago
- Business Standard
Crude oil prices rise as US Fed rate cut, Trump-Putin talks loom
Oil prices rose about 1% on Thursday after U.S. President Donald Trump warned of "severe consequences" if his talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Ukraine fail and on expectations that a U.S. interest rate cut next month could spur oil demand. Central banks, like the U.S. Federal Reserve, use interest rates to control inflation. Lower interest rates reduce consumer borrowing costs and can boost economic growth and demand for oil. Brent crude futures were up 87 cents, or 1.3%, to $66.50 a barrel at 10:53 a.m. EDT (1453 GMT), while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude rose 88 cents, or 1.4%, to $63.53. Those price gains pushed both crude benchmarks out of technically oversold territory for the first time in three days. Brent closed on Tuesday at its lowest price since June 5 and WTI closed at its lowest price since June 2 due in part to bearish inventory and supply data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration and the International Energy Agency. [EIA/S] Putin on Thursday praised "sincere efforts" by the U.S. to end the war in Ukraine and floated the prospect of a nuclear arms deal ahead of a summit on Friday in Alaska with Trump. U.S. allies in Europe have urged Trump to stand firm. Russia was the second-biggest producer of crude in 2024 behind the U.S., so any agreement that may ease sanctions on Moscow would likely boost the amount of Russian oil available for export to global markets. Trump on Wednesday threatened "severe consequences" if Putin does not agree to peace in Ukraine. The U.S. president did not specify what the consequences could be, but he has warned of economic sanctions if the meeting on Friday proves fruitless. Trump has threatened to enact secondary tariffs on buyers of Russian crude, primarily China and India, if Russia continues its war in Ukraine. "The uncertainty of U.S.-Russia peace talks continues to add a bullish risk premium given Russian oil buyers could face more economic pressure," Rystad Energy said in a client note. Some analysts, however, remained sceptical that Trump would take action that could significantly disrupt oil supplies. FED RATE CUT Expectations that the Fed will cut interest rates in September also propped up oil prices. Traders overwhelmingly believe a cut will happen next month after U.S. consumer prices increased at a moderate pace in July. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he thought an aggressive half-percentage-point cut was possible given recent weak employment numbers. But a jump in U.S. wholesale prices last month looks to have all but erased the possibility that the Fed will deliver a jumbo-sized half-percentage-point interest rate cut in September, though expectations for a quarter-percentage-point move next month, followed by another in October, remain intact. San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly has pushed back against the need for a 50-basis-point rate cut at the U.S. central bank's September 16-17 meeting, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. In Europe, meanwhile, Norwegian oil and gas investments are expected to peak this year, and start declining next year as major projects are completed, a statistics office survey of industry players showed on Thursday. Norway produces about 2% of global oil. It became Europe's largest supplier of pipeline gas after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
