{"id":335876,"date":"2025-12-10T02:41:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T02:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/335876\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T02:41:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T02:41:06","slug":"air-transat-union-reach-deal-to-avert-pilot-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/335876\/","title":{"rendered":"Air Transat, union reach deal to avert pilot strike"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

People walk by Air Transat signage at the Montreal Airport in Montreal from the Vatican on Monday.Andrej Ivanov\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

A tentative agreement reached hours before a strike deadline averted a work stoppage by Air Transat\u2019s TRZ-T<\/a> 750 pilots on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

The Montreal-based leisure carrier and the Air Line Pilots\u2019 Association have been in talks for almost a year, seeking to replace an agreement reached in 2015. Talks held in Montreal were taking place almost around the clock. <\/p>\n

Details of the deal, which must be approved by a majority of union members at an upcoming vote, were not immediately available. The union said the agreement is a \u201cmodern contract\u201d that \u201crecognizes the professional contributions of Air Transat pilots.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opinion: Air Transat chaos reflects deep, structural problems for the industry<\/a><\/p>\n

The tentative agreement will come as welcome news to Air Transat\u2019s customers heading into the busy holiday travel season. <\/p>\n

The airline began suspending flights on Tuesday and planned to shut down by Wednesday in order to limit the number of stranded passengers, crews and aircraft.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Transat chief executive officer Annick Gu\u00e9rard apologized to customers whose travel plans were cancelled or disrupted by the threat of the shutdown. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe would have greatly preferred to avoid the threat of a strike, which forced us to modify our operation,\u201d she said. \u201cOur priority now is to quickly restore our operations and deliver on our commitment to provide service that meets our standards.\u201d <\/p>\n

The union had issued a strike notice for 3 a.m. ET on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

Pilots were seeking better pay and working conditions, trying to keep up with their counterparts at Air Canada and other airlines. Air Canada\u2019s pilots last year approved a four-year deal that came with a 42-per-cent pay hike. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur pilots have been frustrated flying under a decade-old, outdated collective agreement,\u201d Bradley Small, a union leader and Air Transat pilot, said in a statement. \u201cThis was compounded by months of stall tactics by Air Transat management during our nearly year-long negotiation.\u201d <\/p>\n

The agreement provides a measure of relief for Transat, which is facing mounting financial losses, a large bailout debt to the government and a tussle for control of the boardroom led by unhappy investor Pierre Karl Peladeau, chief executive officer of Quebecor Inc.<\/p>\n

Mr. Peladeau wants to renegotiate the agreement Transat reached with Ottawa that reduced its pandemic bailout debt to $334-million from $772-million but gave the government a 20-per-cent stake in the company. <\/p>\n

Air Transat lost $114-million in 2024, and has not posted a profit since 2018, when it made $10-million. Its share price has fallen by 57 per cent over the past five years on the Toronto Stock Exchange. <\/p>\n

Geraint Harvey, a professor at Western University who studies airline labour, said the airline\u2019s financial straits were known to negotiators on both sides, and likely helped push them toward a deal. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere was huge pressure on the airline to find an agreement,\u201d Prof. Harvey said. At the same time, the pilots\u2019 union knew it was not sitting across the table from a cash-flush employer, he said. <\/p>\n

Air Transat, a second-tier carrier, cannot afford an agreement that provides the same pay as Air Canada\u2019s pilots receive, said John Gradek, who teaches aviation leadership at McGill University.<\/p>\n

Under the previous agreement, Transat pilots in the middle of the seniority list made about $200,000 a year, compared with $300,000 at Air Canada, Mr. Gradek said. <\/p>\n

Transat, which also sells tour packages, employs about 5,000 people and flies 43 planes to resort destinations in Europe, Mexico and the Caribbean. <\/p>\n

Air Transat was scheduled to fly 47 flights on Wednesday. It was not immediately clear if the gradual shutdown would prevent the airline from fulfilling its plans. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: People walk by Air Transat signage at the Montreal Airport in Montreal from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[143074,147549,2344,45,49,48,145342,147548,34168,1601,900,38493],"class_list":["post-335876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-air-transat","tag-airline-industry","tag-airlines","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-pilots","tag-pilots-union","tag-strike","tag-transportation","tag-travel","tag-travellers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}