Air Canada will resume flights on Sunday after the northern neighbor’s government intervened to end the workers’ strike that halted hundreds of flights this weekend.
The airline said in a statement that the Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) directed Air Canada to resume airline operations and ordered all Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge flight attendants to return to work by 2 p.m. EDT on Sunday.
The CIRB was acting on a Saturday directive from the Canadian Minister of Jobs and Families, Patty Hajdu, who moved to end the strike and require final binding arbitration to break a contract impasse. The order extended the current contract until a new agreement is reached.
Approximately 10,000 flight attendants walked off the job on Saturday, for the first time since 1985, as progress toward a new contract stalled after several months of negotiations.
The move stranded more than 100,000 travelers around the world and resulted in the suspension of approximately 700 daily flights. The airline began canceling flights on Friday, in anticipation of the strike.
The airline said in a statement that it will resume flights on Sunday evening but that it expects further flight cancellations over the next seven to 10 days “until the schedule is stabilized.”
