intervened<\/a>, directing the Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) to impose a process of binding arbitration, which the CIRB did on Sunday. Subsequently, the CIRB issued a return-to-work order, directing both Air Canada and its flight attendants to resume operations.<\/p>\nThe Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents the flight attendants, has not complied. In response, the CIRB declared the walkout illegal and ordered the union to provide written confirmation by noon Monday that it has revoked the strike authorization.<\/p>\n
Although the airline is not paying to operate flights during the strike, it continues to face significant fixed costs. For comparison, in the early months of the COVID-19 shutdown, Air Canada\u2019s daily EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) loss was $9 million. This time, Doerksen estimates losses could reach $25 million per day since operations are structured for a quick restart. National Bank\u2019s EBITDA forecast for the third quarter remains at $1.3 billion.<\/p>\n
Lower-than-projected jet fuel prices might partially offset the labour disruption costs, however. Doerksen cites fuel at $0.85 per litre versus $0.90, and $0.95 per litre projected in Air Canada\u2019s fourth quarter, which could provide a $185 million boost to National Bank\u2019s 2025 EBITDA estimate.<\/p>\n
Doerksen doesn\u2019t expect the strike to last much longer, citing the disruption to travellers and the broader Canadian economy. Once resolved, he expects a 40 per cent increase in flight attendant compensation, representing a 1.2 per cent overall cost increase for Air Canada over four years.<\/p>\n
\u201cConsidering that the same union represents most flight attendants at other airlines, whatever contract structure Air Canada negotiates will be a template for future contracts at other carriers,\u201d he added. \u201cAs such, we do not see Air Canada being competitively disadvantaged.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Saturday, Air Canada\u2019s flight attendants went on strike, grounding most of the airline\u2019s flights. (Sammy Kogan\/The Canadian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[23684,49,47942,48,33910,13830,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-79132","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-air-canada","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-cameron-doerksen","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-flight-attendants","13":"tag-national-bank","14":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79132","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=79132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}