Sask. travellers grapple with uncertainty as Air Canada dispute continues

CBC

2 days ago

Regina International Airport had a subdued atmosphere on Saturday as travelers grappled with continued uncertainty over the Air Canada flight attendant strike.
Five out of six scheduled Air Canada flights out of the airport were cancelled on Saturday. Two more Air Canada flights set to depart on Sunday have also been cancelled, but the fate of flights later in the week remained up in the air.
Randy Durban, who lives in Boston but is originally from Regina, was at the airport to try and sort out a Boston flight he had booked for Tuesday morning.
"I wanted to see if things don't go well on Tuesday with Air Canada, can I get on another flight?" he said. "Because I know WestJet has one to Minneapolis and then on to Boston.
"I was just trying to see if I could book something tentatively."
Durban said he spent about $700 on his Air Canada ticket to Boston. He still plans to buy a WestJet ticket at the last minute if his Air Canada flight is cancelled.
More than 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants went on strike shortly before 1 a.m. ET Saturday morning, immediately grounding hundreds of flights across the country.
About 12 hours later, Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu said she had invoked Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code to order binding arbitration between the airline and its union, ordering operations to resume.
But as of Saturday afternoon, it was not immediately clear when Air Canada's flight attendants will return to work and flights fully resume.
Mikhail Mainra was also at the airport on Saturday to try and sort out a future Air Canada flight, which is booked for Monday.
"I actually did book another flight just as a backup, which was quite hard to do," he said. "But I didn't want to get to the day before where I couldn't find any flights to go home. So yeah, [I'm] just kind of scrambling to get a last minute ticket."
"Because this is a fluid situation, it is critical that if you're traveling with Air Canada, you have your updated contact information, including your phone number and your e-mail address," said Regina International Airport President and CEO James Bogusz in an interview on Friday.
"So if your flight, whether it be from Regina or elsewhere, or your connecting flight is impacted by these disruptions, you'll be made aware."
Bogusz said Air Canada is by far the largest carrier between Regina and Toronto, and estimated that the flights that were already been cancelled on Friday had impacted hundreds of passengers.
On its website, Air Canada said it will try to rebook any flight that is cancelled due to the labour strike, including with other airlines. But it cautioned that space was already limited due to the peak summer travel season.
Full refunds for flights booked before August 15 is also being offered for Air Canada flights departing on August 16 and 17. Customers who booked a non-refundable ticket could cancel their trip and receive the amount paid as a travel credit.
Air Canada also said any passenger booked to travel between August 15 and 19 can change their flights for free, but only if the tickets were purchased before August 15. The free reschedulings are also only eligible for dates between August 21 and September 12, 2025.