Barry Ellsworth<\/p>\n
02 August 2026\u2022Update: 02 August 2026<\/p>\n
More than 4,000 flight attendants at WestJet, Canada\u2019s second-largest airline, went on strike Sunday, grounding about 600 daily flights and disrupting travel plans for an estimated 250,000 passengers.<\/p>\n
Monday is a civic holiday in Canada, making it one of the busiest travel weekends of the year. The strike is expected to cost WestJet millions of dollars.<\/p>\n
Pay is at the center of the dispute. Flight attendants are seeking compensation for work performed on the ground before and after flights.<\/p>\n
Delta Air Lines became the first airline to introduce pay for ground work in 2022. Air Canada followed in February under a new contract.<\/p>\n
Federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu said in a social media post that she was disappointed the two sides had failed to reach an agreement after trying to negotiate a new contract.<\/p>\n
The flight attendants are members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees. In a statement, union representative Alia Hussain blamed WestJet for the strike.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would not be here if (the airline) had taken our concerns seriously for almost 11 months of bargaining,\u201d Hussain said.<\/p>\n
WestJet said affected passengers would receive refunds.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re disappointed to be here; this directly impacts the travel plans of our guests, our WestJetters and the communities and businesses we serve,\u201d CEO Alexis von Hoensbroech told The Canadian Press.<\/p>\n
Flight attendants currently earn between $28.88 and $53.61 per credit hour.<\/p>\n
Under Air Canada\u2019s new agreement, flight attendants receive compensation of up to 70% of their hourly rate for the hour before takeoff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barry Ellsworth 02 August 2026\u2022Update: 02 August 2026 More than 4,000 flight attendants at WestJet, Canada\u2019s second-largest airline,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":843023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,44,232171],"class_list":["post-843022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news","tag-sitekeywords"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843022","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=843022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}