Air Canada Flight Attendants Reject Wage Offer; Wage Talks Move to Mediation, Flights to Continue

Air Canada flight attendants overwhelmingly rejected the wage portion of a tentative agreement reached last month, with 99.1% of roughly 10,000 members voting it down, the airline and the union said Saturday. Despite the decisive rebuke, both sides said operations will continue and the wage dispute will move to mediation and, if necessary, arbitration under terms they had prearranged.

"Air Canada and CUPE contemplated this potential outcome and mutually agreed that if the tentative agreement was not ratified, the wage portion would be referred to mediation and, if no agreement was reached at that stage, to arbitration," the airline said in a statement. "The parties also agreed that no labor disruption could be initiated, and therefore there will be no strike or lock-out, and flights will continue to operate."

Negotiators for the Air Canada component of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) had reached a tentative deal with the carrier on Aug. 19 intended to end a disruptive four-day strike in August, when more than 10,000 flight attendants defied a government-imposed back-to-work order and forced the airline back to bargaining. The rank-and-file vote covered only the wage portion of that tentative deal; other contract terms remained in place if the wage portion was rejected, the union said.

Because the parties agreed in advance that rejection of the tentative wage offer would trigger mediation rather than allow further legal strike action, members cannot immediately resume lawful job action. If mediation fails, the dispute is slated to proceed to binding arbitration. That sequence was designed to prevent an immediate return to the kind of operational disruption that hit Air Canada and its passengers in August.

The August strike had prompted Air Canada to withdraw its financial guidance for 2025 as the airline assessed the impact of the walkout on schedules, revenue and costs. The company has said it continues to operate flights and to work with affected customers to rebook or reimburse travel where needed.

Union leaders said most of the non‑wage terms negotiated in the tentative agreement would remain part of any final contract if the wage issues are resolved through mediation or arbitration. Both sides have committed to the dispute resolution path they outlined when the tentative deal was reached, and emphasized that air service would continue uninterrupted while talks proceed.

Air Canada and CUPE did not set a public timetable for the mediation process or for any subsequent arbitration, and did not provide an immediate estimate of how long unresolved wage talks might take. Meanwhile, the carrier said it would continue to operate its network and to communicate with customers about any bookings affected by earlier disruptions.

The vote closes a chapter of direct action in the summer labor unrest at Canada’s largest carrier but signals an extended bargaining phase over pay. Mediation and arbitration are likely to shape the final wage outcome without reopening the immediate avenue for strikes or lockouts that characterized the August stoppage.