Air Canada could soon complete a major round of collective bargaining, giving its leadership more room to address customer service and operational priorities. The tentative agreement comes as labour tensions persist elsewhere in Canada’s airline industry.
BNN Bloomberg spoke with John Gradek, faculty lecturer at McGill University, about the airline’s labour position, the challenges facing its new CEO and the possibility of a WestJet disruption.
Key Takeaways
- The tentative agreement covers about 11,000 employees working in maintenance, baggage, cargo and other technical operations.
- Ratification would largely remove the threat of a major Air Canada labour disruption for the next several years.
- Wages, pensions, insurance, working conditions and work-life balance were among the central bargaining issues.
- Air Canada’s new CEO can turn greater attention toward customer service, employee support and the tools used to assist passengers.
- WestJet flight attendants are voting on a strike mandate amid concerns about wages and roughly 35 hours of unpaid work each month.
Read the full transcript below:
ROGER: Well, Air Canada has reached a tentative four-year collective agreement with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the union representing about 11,000 employees in technical operations, airports, cargo, logistics and supply services. The deal still requires ratification by union members, but if approved, it would be the sixth collective agreement the airline has reached this year. Joining us now is John Gradek, faculty lecturer at McGill University. John, thanks, as always, for joining us.
JOHN: My pleasure, Roger.
ROGER: Okay, where does this agreement fit in with all the other ones? Is it — was this one of the big ones, the important ones?
JOHN: Well, it just represents about 40 per cent of the about 30,000 Air Canada staff. It’s really 11,000 employees that are on the technical side, the ones that you don’t really talk to as a passenger. Those are the ones on the ramp, ones in baggage, ones in cargo. So, they are behind-the-scenes people that make the airline tick. So, if these are — if these employees did, in fact, take a strike and play, it would very necessarily shut the airline down. So, this is a good-news story for Canada, for passengers. It still requires ratification, which is not a simple task. We all know.
ROGER: And with this deal, I mean, they — their old contract expired April 1. They did threaten a strike. Was it acrimonious, these negotiations, or were they fairly civil?
JOHN: They’ve gone through — yeah. They’ve gone through a couple of strike votes already. They’ve had some tentative agreements in the past. I think the last one was a couple of weeks ago that they voted down. It was pretty close. So, it was like 1.18 per cent against the agreement, and it — to me, that, that, that’s pretty close to an agreement. But there seem to be some pretty bitter issues still remaining. So, I — you know, who knows? You know, if it goes on, if the union does ratify it, it’ll be close. And if the union does not ratify it, it’ll be close as well. But, you know, there has been some turmoil within the union ranks itself on this contract. There used to be — the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers represented both ground workers as well as maintenance, and there’s been a kind of a split in the union ranks, and that’s caused some concern among the union members in terms of who gets what type of benefit. So, that’s been hanging around in the background to these sets of negotiations. So, hopefully, that’ll have been resolved with this latest round of the deal.
ROGER: And what were the major concerns? What were the big sticking points?
JOHN: Oh, money. It was really —
ROGER: Just money.
JOHN: Money. Oh, yeah. It’s — you know, that’s the one that Air Canada has. That’s the big 900-pound gorilla in the room that they went through. Pilots, with flight attendants, they went through Unifor. So, this is the last big one that’s coming off these 10-year agreements, which have been the bane of the industry for the last few years. So, yeah, there’s a — there’s catch-up. There’s a lot of catch-up to do. Question was, you know, again, modernizing the contract, recognizing things have changed in terms of working conditions and work-life balance. There are some compensation plan issues, some pension issues, some insurance issues. These are all the things that nag in terms of the dragging. It takes a lot of time. If you have a 10-year contract, you’ve got to really go through all of those levels of detail, and that’s what took time and effort.
ROGER: All right, and I believe — is this their fifth or sixth one this year that they’ve signed? Sixth, right?
JOHN: Sixth one.
ROGER: Is that a good thing?
JOHN: They’re all done.
ROGER: They’re all done. Okay.
JOHN: They’re all done. We should have, supposedly — cross your fingers — labour peace. There are a couple of outstanding CUPE issues with the flight attendants that Air Canada Rouge is kind of pushing some flight attendants to kind of reconsider their agreement to the collective agreement. But that’s — that should be solved either by arbitration or by conciliation. So, hopefully, we have some labour peace on the horizon for Air Canada for at least the next few years.
ROGER: What does that allow the new CEO to do? Because he comes in with peace, love and understanding. Everything’s good. What does it allow, knowing that there, at least for three, four years, are no issues?
JOHN: Yeah, I think that gives him a lot of runway, as we say, to be able to do things differently. I think Air Canada’s got some issues that it has to deal with in terms of its customer service side of it, in terms of the attitude, in terms of how they service customers, the tools they use for serving customers. So, I think he’s got a pretty good labour pool to work with. The question now is, how do you fine-tune the actual work that these people are going to be doing? How do you change attitude? You know, you’ve got flight attendants, you’ve got ground service workers, you’ve got passenger agents, you’ve got call centre agents that, you know, need a lot of TLC, as we say, to get them to up the ante when it comes to the level of customer service that Air Canada has been providing, which leaves a lot to be desired, as we know. So, that’s going to be his biggest challenge. You won’t have to worry about collective agreements and wages and stuff. That’s all under the wire.
ROGER: All right, and then, bigger picture for the industry, how’s it looking?
JOHN: Ah, think of the next — the next big one. I’m looking over my shoulder. It’s WestJet, and the flight attendants are in the middle of the voting right now for a strike mandate for flight attendants. They’ve got a big issue to deal with, which is, again, they’re the lowest wages in the flight attendant category in Canada, and they have all of this unpaid work. You remember, Air Canada had the issue last summer, and Air Transat had it. The WestJet flight attendants are saying they’ve got about 35 hours a month that they typically work that are unpaid, and that’s been very much a sticking point in the negotiations with WestJet. So, salaries and unpaid hours are again rearing their ugly head when it comes to labour negotiations in the industry.
ROGER: Could we see those two things ground WestJet?
JOHN: We saw it ground Air Canada. So, three days for Air Canada, 500,000 passengers. So, the strike date looks like it’s mid-August for WestJet. So, in the middle of the peak. So, the union’s got the leverage now in terms of, you know, getting WestJet’s attention to come to an agreement. So, if not, we might have some problems with WestJet mid-August.
ROGER: All right, we have to wrap it up there, John. But always a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you, sir.
JOHN: Have a good one, Roger. Take care.
ROGER: John Gradek, faculty lecturer at McGill University.
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This BNN Bloomberg summary and transcript of the July 13, 2026 interview with John Gradek are published with the assistance of AI. Original research, interview questions and added context was created by BNN Bloomberg journalists. An editor also reviewed this material before it was published to ensure its accuracy and adherence with BNN Bloomberg editorial policies and standards.
