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Air Transat passengers breathed a sigh of relief Tuesday evening after the company reached a tentative deal with its pilot union, narrowly avoiding a strike on the cusp of the busy holiday travel period.
Transat A.T. Inc., which owns the leisure airline, found common ground with the Air Line Pilots Association just eight hours before the union’s strike deadline.
The travel company immediately sought to start ramping up sun flights after cancelling at least 18 trips scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday in a precautionary move that affected thousands of travellers.
Neither the company nor the union representing around 750 Air Transat pilots released details of the tentative agreement, which the membership will vote on in the coming days.
Annick Guerard, Transat president and CEO, said the airline “greatly preferred” to avoid the threat of a work stoppage.
“We are aware that this period has created significant uncertainty, and we extend our sincerest apologies to our customers whose flights were disrupted in recent days,” she said in a statement on Tuesday evening.
“Our priority now is to quickly restore our operations and deliver on our commitment to provide service that meets our standards.”
The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) sought a new agreement that boosts wages, job security and quality of life following big gains for aviators at Air Canada and WestJet over the past two years.
Capt. Bradley Small, chair of the Air Transat ALPA master executive council, said the current pilot contract lags behind industry standards in North America.
“We believe this new agreement meets the needs of today’s profession, consistent with collective agreements other ALPA-represented pilot groups are signing with their employers,” Small said in a statement.
Shareholder demands board shakeup
The showdown comes at a particularly fraught time for the airline as it struggles to manage a large debt load, turn an annual profit for the first time since 2018 and fend off a coup attempt from an activist investor.
Last week, media mogul Pierre Karl Péladeau, who owns 9.5 per cent of Transat — its second-biggest shareholder — demanded a board shakeup and strategic overhaul.
The proposal would see Péladeau’s head of telecommunications giant at Quebecor Inc. replace Transat chair Susan Kudzman, with Péladeau also gaining a seat on the board.
Air Transat announced on Sunday it will gradually shut down operations over the next three days in response to a 72-hour strike mandate issued by the union representing its 750 pilots. Labour lawyer Sundeep Gokhale discusses the situation on Hanomansing Tonight.
Meanwhile, Transat’s flight schedule was severely disrupted this week after it began to cancel flights in anticipation of a possible work stoppage.
By Tuesday afternoon, the Montreal-based company had suspended routes to sun destinations in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Peru and Spain as well as London and Paris. All 18 flights were slated to either take off or land in Toronto or Montreal.
Passenger Adrian Ruso said he was relieved to be returning home from a getaway as scheduled and without any delays Tuesday.
“The last few days we were stressed out, but we’re glad to be back home today,” he said.
The timing could hardly have been worse for an airline known to cater to sun-thirsty travellers in the winter months.
“The union and pilots know this is a very difficult time for airlines [to halt]. This is where they make a lot of their money,” said Geraint Harvey, an employment relations professor at Western University.
“The aircraft is full. If you have to cancel those flights, that is incredibly problematic.”
The carrier’s active fleet of nearly 40 planes carries tens of thousands of passengers on more than 500 flights each week.
ALPA issued a 72-hour strike notice on Sunday. Transat said a potential strike or lockout could have started as early as 3 a.m. ET on Wednesday.
