Eastern Ont. travellers stranded as jobs minister orders Air Canada flight attendants back to work

CTV News

17 hours ago

Travellers at the Ottawa airport at the Air Canada desk on Aug. 16, 2025. (Josh Marano/CTV News Ottawa)
Tanya McKechnie, a business traveler from Kemptville, Ont., is among thousands of Canadians caught in the ongoing Air Canada strike, which led to widespread flight cancellations across the country.
McKechnie had planned to return home Friday after a weeklong business trip to Calgary. Instead, her flight was cancelled, leaving her scrambling for alternatives.
'People were mad,' McKechnie says.
'There were people that have been travelling and I talked to one lady who had been coming home from New Zealand, had been traveling for 30 hours, and Ottawa was her final destination, and she couldn't get there either, so, we're all standing in line and then they start handing out these little labor dispute packages.'
She says she's lucky having travelled to Calgary so often, as she was able to stay at a friend's house for the time being, which was not the case for other people she was travelling with. She says Air Canada was not compensating her a hotel.
McKechnie adds the airline could not provide her an alternative flight home, adding in a text, Air Canada says it checked 120 flights for a seat. Instead, she paid $1,400 for a WestJet ticket to make it home on Tuesday.
She adds the strike has resulted in her missing some key family milestones.
'My son's very first football game is today, and we've been preparing for this for weeks, and I don't get to see my little guy take the field for the very first time,' says an emotional McKechnie.
'It's also my dad's 75th birthday party this afternoon that I'm missing too.'
The strike, which began earlier this week, involves Air Canada flight attendants represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). Members are demanding a fair contract and say the airline has ignored long-standing concerns.
Just hours after the strike commenced on Saturday, the federal government intervened. Labour Minister Patty Hajdu ordered binding arbitration between the airline and the union, and ordered operations to resume.
'There was an offer tabled by the employer and the talks broke down,' Hajdu says.
'It is clear that the parties are no longer or are not any closer to resolving some of the key issues that remain, and they will need help with an arbitrator.'
Henly Larden, an Air Canada flight attendant and the vice president of CUPE 4094, says the government is violating their Charter rights to take job action and gives the airline exactly what it wants.
'We are incredibly disgusted that the Liberal government has been speaking out of both sides of its mouth,' Larden says.
'They said that the bargaining table was the appropriate place to make this address. And here they are, having invoked 107.'
The strike has disrupted dozens of flights in Ottawa and thousands nationwide, leading travellers like McKechnie facing costly alternatives, missed commitments and frustration.
'I just feel like hung out to dry, that's really what it comes down to,' McKechnie says.
'I see the videos on social media, oh, we're going to rebook, they are not doing that, nobody is rebooking anything, if I didn't rebook myself, I could still be sitting at the airport waiting.
It remains unclear when normal operations will resume.
With files from CTVNews.ca