Adam Smith

AC's pilot contract was due to expire in 2024, but the pilots have exercised an early termination option, bringing expiry of the contract up to September 29 of this year. CBC story here, BNN story here.

Hopefully AC will get a deal done without the disruption that was recently caused at WS. For those who didn't follow the thread in the WS forum, after failed bargaining, then arbitration, WS pilots voted to strike and eventually issued a strike notice. A deal was reached before the strike began, but WS had already pre-emptively cancelled a number of flights, creating problems for many travelers.

AC pilots will be looking for big wage increases (WS cited as +24%, DL +34% as comparables), and it's noteworthy that the AC pilot union (ACPA) recently merged with the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), which is getting close to monopoly - AC, WS (+ Encore), QK, TS, Bearskin, PAL, Canadian North, F8, CargoJet... Down in the US, they represent pilots at DL, UA, AS, F9, NK, B6, HA, plus a bunch of regionals, cargo, etc. I understand AC's pilots felt the ACPA was too close to management and got rolled on contract negotiations, and is hoping ALPA will take a more aggressive approach. It also helps to have all of the data and insight gathered from recent negotiations with WS, DL, and others.

Bohemian1

Yeah, I saw that story about the merger and thought about the leverage that must give them. Should be interesting to see what transpires.

ffsim

I’m just hoping they arrive at a new deal without any disruptions. I suspect the kind of proactive flight cancellations we saw with WS would have a much more significant impact on AC pax.

CanadianMike

Pilots do have a lot of leverage.
I suspect they (the company) will have seen the WJ situation play out and acknowledge how negative the PR was and want to avoid that.
Although of course avoiding lost revenue would be their primary concern...

The Lev

Hopefully both sides are reasonable and AC offers and the AC pilots accept something that aligns with the WS deal and the union doesn't try to force something along the lines of if WS pays X we expect AC to pay X++.

As a client, the last almost decade of labour peace at AC has been a blessing.

yscleo

We'll be flying in Sept., and early Oct., just around that deadline.

The Pilots will get a big raise. Airfare will go up. At least Canada is still safe and clean, and we can travel..

wjw

Hope the negotiations go quickly. The uncertainty is almost as bad as labour action.

So far I’ve booked my travel through August but as I look to my busy fall travel season this will likely give me pause. Either wait until closer to book or potentially shift to other airlines.

Ryzon9

I am going to assume AC saw the chaos of WJ and will come to a deal faster. Unfortunately I have early October travel to book…

Sopwith

Given AC’s market dominance there would seem to be little hesitation to settle and pass the costs on to the pax, especially since WS is likely to follow like a herd of migrating wildebeest.

Transpacificflyer

Perhaps AC might be able to get away with that for domestic routes. On international routes, I don't know. The Asian fares are already very high and the cost gap between AC and its competitors on premium fares is such that many people are shopping around.$12,000+ RT for AC from YYZ to BKK vs $5000 - $6.000 with LX/ LH and so on. The airline received alot of wage concessions from its employees over the past few years and the workers are looking for the airline to share its excess profits. If we hit a recession as I believe we will in 2024 and the union expects, I anticipate that the union will look for some worker protection to avoid the idiotic layoff strategy that leaves the airline shortstaffed and pilots over worked. The labour peace at AC was nice while it lasted.

songsc

While it may appear that the union is a solitary entity, senior members often throw the juniors under the bus when it comes to lay offs and wages. Remember the discussions on how much some of the AC wide body FOs are paid? And how nasty some discussions among pilot communities were in 2020? If AC execs are smart, they should exploit these weakness to get a better deal for the business.

warrens

What excess profits? Air Canada made basically no money in Q1.

Worse, AC has some long-term financial challenges ahead because of Covid-era debts, and we all saw that a lot of routes were already stuffed full through most of Q1 so I have to wonder where significant growth will come from without further increasing fares or adding more profitable routes, both of which are challenging to do.

EdmFlyBoi

AC is definitely not making money like the US carriers. The kind of raises that we have seen in the US would be a pretty big cost to AC and impact the bottom line. Without knowing what is happening with WS in terms of finances, it is hard to know where this goes based on the WS agreement. Q2 and Q3 are going to very informative in terms of where AC sits in a time of very full aircraft. If they aren't making money with the present labour deals, they will be very in the red should the labour groups get significant raises.

md10302

Not surprising to see considering the huge pay increase WJ pilots got

razorblade705

AC certainly does have a higher operating cost than most other carriers. Higher tax country along with all the extra "winter weather" expenses that someone like UAL / DAL wouldn't have to spend as much money on. With that said, WJ's 15-25% pay raise would serve as the floor now for what AC Pilots want and I expect anything less than that would not help in reaching a deal early and probably even make the job action worse.

AC is cancelling 30-50 flights a day for "Crew Constraints" and it's not even summer peak yet, I fear we're in for a lot worse the rest of this year.