Air Canada, flight attendants' union reach tentative deal to end strike
Mark Hancock, National President of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), attends a picket line with striking Air Canada flight attendants amid a standoff with a government board that said the stoppage was unlawful, at Toronto Pearson International Airport in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada August 18, 2025. REUTERS/Kyaw Soe Oo
Air Canada's unionised flight attendants have reached an agreement with the country's largest carrier, the union said on Tuesday (Aug 19).
"The Strike has ended. We have a tentative agreement we will bring forward to you," the Canadian Union of Public Employees said in a Facebook post.
The carrier had earlier offered a 38 per cent increase in total compensation for flight attendants over four years, with a 25 per cent raise in the first year, which the union deemed insufficient.
Flight attendants had sought pay for tasks such as boarding passengers, which are currently not remunerated. They are now paid for time when the plane is moving.
The CUPE, which represents Air Canada's 10,400 flight attendants, wanted to make gains on unpaid work that go beyond recent advances secured by their counterparts at US carriers like American Airlines.
The agreement provides some relief for the carrier, which cancelled hundreds of flights.
Air Canada and its low-cost affiliate Air Canada Rouge normally carry about 130,000 customers a day. The airline is also the foreign carrier with the largest number of flights to the US.
