Addressing the Aftermath of the Air Canada Strike as a Frequent Flyer
Part 1: My Perspective on the Labour Dispute and What I Did to Protect Myself
This is the first part of a two-part series about my perspective on the Air Canada flight attendants’ strike that left over a half-million passengers stranded worldwide prior to its conclusion. This first part concerns how I dealt with the possible impact of this strike on my scheduled travel plans to Europe with Air Canada from August 28 to September 10, 2025. The second part will focus on the service experience I had with Air Canada as a passenger following the conclusion of the strike.
Prelude to the Air Canada Flight Attendants’ Strike
After eight months of contract negotiations between Air Canada and its flight attendants’ union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), there was a grounding of all flights from August 16-19, 2025, due to strike action taken by CUPE before the labour dispute was finally resolved. The fallout from this dispute made international headlines worldwide and became a source of major crisis for all passengers and personnel directly impacted. Whether they were stranded far away from home or they couldn’t begin their travel plans for vacations, business activities, or family-related reasons, these passengers were effectively held hostage to this labour dispute that could have potentially led to life-threatening consequences in extreme cases for some passengers.
While I wasn’t directly impacted by this strike action, I had a definite cause for concern because of my own travel plans to leave for London on August 28 for a weekend visit there, plus travel thereafter to the Netherlands to attend a physics conference in Utrecht in early September and do sightseeing in Amsterdam on the following weekend for travel writing purposes before a scheduled return home on September 10. (At the time of posting this article, I will be in Nijmegen to meet with an academic colleague and begin collaborative work on a research paper.)
Yet Another Example of a Travel Frustration I Faced Due to a Labour Dispute
As to be expected, I made a significant investment of money and time in preparation for this trip, all of which would have been put into complete jeopardy if this strike had continued on indefinitely without any hope for a quick resolution. Also, this isn’t the first time in recent memory of my facing this exact dilemma. Almost exactly one year ago when Air Canada was in difficult contract negotiations with its pilots’ union, I was due to fly to Toronto while en route to a physics conference in the neighbouring city of Waterloo, Ontario and the threat of strike action could have left me stranded away from home in Regina, Saskatchewan where I currently live. (For those who are unaware of Canadian geography, the distance between Toronto and Regina is close to three hours away by air and 2-3 days away by car.)
As I have a family friend in Toronto who was willing to let me stay at his home for as long as necessary, I wasn’t excessively worried about that predicament. However, I did have pre-planned travel expenses to protect, such as an airport hotel stay as content for a future article in Scientist World Traveller, so logistically I had some minor concerns to address in that situation.
Fortunately, the potential pilots’ strike of last year was averted by the negotiating parties, so I never had to play out in my head the various scenarios on how to reach home in the face of an airline shutdown. I have nothing but complete sympathy for the thousands of Air Canada passengers worldwide caught in the worst part of the current labour dispute because I got to see from the sidelines the exact nature of this nightmare that I could have faced last year and predicted easily enough.
That said, I’ve already had my share of disruptions with international travel plans because of labour disputes, for which I have something important to contribute in context. For example, my very first article published on Substack documents how two one-day rail strikes in the United Kingdom forced me to make a significant change in a carefully balanced itinerary to visit London and Liverpool in October 2023.
A few months prior to that trip, I had to wait at London Heathrow airport well over an hour for my checked luggage to arrive at the carousel because the baggage handlers decided to have a strike without any prior warning given to passengers, several of whom had connecting flights to other parts of the world, or who had paid lots of money for advanced tickets to visit tourist attractions later that day. All of these very time-sensitive travel plans were put into immediate jeopardy because of strike action that left every passenger from airlines worldwide completely blindsided by its impact!
(By the way, it’s because of other very frustrating past travel experiences of this type that I learned to never make a paid reservation for any same-day activities in London, something that I may write about in a later issue of Scientist World Traveller.)
How Do I Navigate Such a Nightmare in the Making Due to Forces Beyond My Control?
The primary objective in my writing for Scientist World Traveller—aside from showcasing all the interesting places I’ve visited around the world—is to emphasize the importance of attaining a state of stress-free travel, no matter the current circumstance I may find myself facing at the time. While it’s impossible to avoid all possible stress-inducing experiences when travelling abroad, it’s most definitely possible to find a personal state that yields a minimal negative impact for me. This comes from having ample past travel experiences to draw from memory, creating a well-structured itinerary that allows for enough flexibility to adjust effectively in light of changing circumstances, doing basic on-line research on what I’m most likely to encounter in a new location upon my arrival, and also developing a good sense of situational awareness of what’s possible to do in the moment when overcoming a major challenge like a labour dispute to disrupt my travel plans.
It’s not my place to offer any opinion on the specifics of this labour dispute between Air Canada and its flight attendants, and I will never take sides on any future issues of this kind. People are perfectly free to look elsewhere to seek out details pertaining to what exactly happened in this situation, and who exactly bore the major responsiblity for causing this travel disruption to occur. Rather, I’m much more motivated on navigating the best possible path forward when faced with a major crisis of this kind, and also to figure out any lessons to learn in order to minimize the likelihood of facing problems with any future travel plans.
A Timeline of How I Managed to Prepare for Potential Disruption of My Own Travel Plans
Under Canadian labour law, CUPE was in a legal position to give a 72-hour notice of strike action to Air Canada on August 12. Based on past experience with last year’s potential pilots’ strike, I already had the sense that any possibility of a strike wouldn’t seriously impact me because I had a two-week buffer of time before I was due to leave for London. However, given media coverage of the deteriorating negotiations up to this deadline, I naturally grew more concerned as the days progressed.
Since I had no intention whatsoever to take any drastic action to change my current itinerary, my best option was to simply wait and think carefully about how best to proceed and explore all options available to me. From the Air Canada website and app, I learned that passengers in my situation had the option to fly with an alternative airline at Air Canada’s expense should my flight be cancelled, but only if I received an e-mail notice beforehand of that fact. Since I had my two-week buffer in hand, I was already confident to expect no such notice in the foreseeable future.
As time progressed towards the August 15 strike deadline, I came upon the solution to request from Air Canada a departure flight to London one-day earlier than scheduled on my ticket, so that I would arrive the next morning with an extra day in hand to protect all of my current hotel and air/rail transportation reservations booked weeks in advance. Since I had the time flexibility to leave earlier than intended, arriving there a day early wasn’t an issue for me. As well, because my return home wasn’t due until September 10, I had more than enough breathing room to figure out from Europe an alternative way home from London if necessary.
The only immediate issue I had was to make sure that I had a refundable hotel reservation for the extra night that could be cancelled in time without penalty if not needed. Since London is effectively a second home of mine, I already had a good idea where I could find a basic place to sleep that was cost-effective, that also met my non-negotiable need for cleanliness and safety for any hotel stay I had in mind. As a worst-case scenario, I also had friends in London who I could approach to stay at their home for one night, but that wasn’t something I wanted to do if I could help it. (This is a very good example of what I mean by situational awareness.)
After doing a brief on-line search of hotels that met the above conditions, I held off from making a reservation for a hotel of my choosing until after I decided to call Air Canada on the day of the deadline. Aside from presenting my proposal to the airline, I needed clarity on how much advanced notice I should expect to receive in the event of a flight cancellation.
The following is a brief timeline of how matters transpired for me when I called Air Canada, along with all relevants details thereafter pertaining to the strike action and its resolution:
August 15:
At 8:30 am, I phoned Air Canada’s automated call centre to inquire about my flight status and requested a call-back to speak with an agent.
After waiting over four hours while doing other things during the day, I received a call from a female Air Canada agent at 1:01 pm.
The agent gave me assurance that my scheduled flight wasn’t impacted because it was too far into the future to be cancelled.
I told her of my proposal to fly to London a day earlier with the understanding that Air Canada would be obligated under its blanket promise to have me flown with another airline at its expense. I also asked her about the status of my scheduled return flight from London back to Canada in anticipation that the strike would be over by then. She responded that my reservation for the return flight as scheduled would still be active in the event that my outgoing flight was with a different airline.
I further told the agent that I was prepared to pay for my extra hotel accommodation in London to guarantee that all of my internal travel expenses in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands wouldn’t be jeopardized. In response, she said that it would be up to me to make that decision, but was totally understanding of my concerns, particularly because I had firm time-sensitive commitments waiting for me in London for the weekend.
When I asked her about the amount of notice I would likely get from Air Canada about the possible cancellation of my flight, she couldn’t give me a good answer. However, she encouraged me to call back next week when the situation on the ground would become much clearer for my circumstances to become relevant.
I also informed the agent for the sake of disclosure that I’m a freelance travel writer and that I would be writing about my account of the Air Canada strike for Scientist World Traveller on Substack as it progresses over time, particularly given my mandate in support of stress-free travel. For her part, the agent acknowledged awareness of this fact and was supportive of my intentions, after which we concluded the call amicably.
August 16:
On the morning of August 16 when Air Canada’s planes were grounded as a consequence of the strike, the Hon. Patty Hajdu serving as the Canadian Government’s Minister of Jobs and Families announced that she contacted the Canada Industrial Relations Board to instruct both parties to begin the immediate resumption of service for Air Canada passengers and to extend the terms of the current collective bargaining agreement, until such time as for binding arbitration to be enacted in the absence of a negotiated settlement of the labour dispute.
August 17-18:
CUPE representing the flight attendants decided not to comply with the back-to-work order from the Canadian Government, resulting in a labour standoff that could potentially last for several days.
For my own specific travel circumstances, there was still no reason to necessarily panic given the benefit of the time buffer I had available, but there was definitely cause to consider more forcefully the need to pursue my solution to this potential travel crisis in the making for me.
August 19:
After negotiating all through the night, Air Canada and CUPE came to a tentative agreement on the morning of August 19, subject to final ratification sometime in the future by the 10,000 flight attendants affected. The union expressed to its members that they should immediately return to work in order to help the estimated 500,000 stranded passengers get to where they needed to go.
Air Canada further announced that, because of the labour dispute now concluded, it would take roughly 7-10 days for the airline to become fully operational.
For myself, this time window would just overlap with my intended departure day for London. However, my scheduled flight continued to show no sign of any cancellation, as expected.
August 20:
I checked the Regina airport website to verify whether Air Canada flights to and from Regina were operational.
All Air Canada flights available were listed as “On Time” with one exception.
The AC1923 flight from Toronto scheduled to arrive at 1:33 pm was “Cancelled,” along with its companion AC1924 flight back to Toronto scheduled for departure at 2:30 pm. No reason was specified for this sole cancellation.
All other Air Canada flights scheduled for August 20 and 21 following this cancelled flight were shown to be “On Time” for future departures and arrivals.
The indications given above suggested an extreme unlikelihood that my flight to London on August 28 would be negatively impacted by the backlog of stranded passengers following the strike action over the weekend.
August 21-27:
To date, all Air Canada flights listed on the Regina airport website were operating as scheduled and with no sign of any unusual disruptions occurring.
This concludes Part 1 of this two-part series on the Air Canada flight attendants’ strike, to be followed by Part 2: My Observations of the Air Canada Travel Experience Following the Strike.
Hi. Please feel free to comment on this article anytime if you like what I've written or have anything constructive to add. Also, please take a moment to check out my "About" page and become a free subscriber to "Scientist World Traveller" if you haven't already done so. Thank you.