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Air Canada pulls forecast, citing flight attendants’ strike

Air Canada flight attendants and supporters demonstrate during a strike Saturday at Toronto Pearson International Airport in Mississauga, Ontario. (Bloomberg)
Air Canada flight attendants and supporters demonstrate during a strike Saturday at Toronto Pearson International Airport in Mississauga, Ontario. (Bloomberg)
By Anthony Palazzo and Thomas Seal Bloomberg

Air Canada pulled its financial guidance through year-end, citing the impact of a strike by flight attendants that has caused the airline to cancel hundreds of flights.

About 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants walked out on Saturday, grounding the airline and disrupting travel for about 130,000 passengers a day during the peak summer season. The union is seeking higher pay and compensation for periods the plane isn’t in motion, such as work they perform during boarding.

“Given the effects of the labor disruption and related impact on operations, Air Canada is suspending its guidance for third quarter and full-year 2025,” the company said Monday in a statement. Shares of Air Canada were down almost 3% as of 9:39 a.m. in Toronto.

The federal government asked the Canada Industrial Relations Board on Saturday to step in and order the workers back on the job and to send the matter to arbitration. Air Canada had planned to resume flights on Sunday evening.

But the union has defied the order and said it wants to “dismantle” the legal process the government is using to end the strike, known as Section 107.

The CIRB has declared the strike to be unlawful and ordered the union to end it by 12 p.m. on Monday, Air Canada said in a statement that didn’t address when it expects operations to resume. On Sunday, Air Canada said it hoped flights would restart on Monday evening.

“If we stick together, they can’t fire us all,” Wesley Lesosky, president of the Air Canada component of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, said in a video call Sunday. “The large national union behind us is fully supporting us for our cause, fully supporting the dismantling of the 107 process.”

The strike disrupts a crucial mode of transport across the world’s second-largest country by area. Air Canada and its low-cost Rouge unit called off nearly 500 flights for Monday, according to tracking site FlightAware.com. Air Canada is part of the Star Alliance, working with airlines including United Airlines Holdings Inc. and Deutsche Lufthansa.

Other airlines showed little capacity, and ticket prices spiked for the seats that remained. Air France-KLM was offering one-way business fares from Paris to Vancouver on Tuesday for more than $11,250, including at least two stops. There were no economy tickets available through Wednesday.

From Hong Kong to Vancouver, Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. showed no one-way flights available through Aug. 24. A one-week round-trip to Toronto on Emirates, leaving Hong Kong on Monday via Dubai, was only available in a combined business/first class booking that cost $11,980.

Air Canada said on July 28 that it expected to report C$3.2 billion to C$3.6 billion in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization for 2025, and increase capacity by 1% to 3% from last year’s levels.