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The vote is not expected to restart the walkout that snarled travel in Canada last month.
Sept. 6, 2025, 5:22 p.m. ET
About 10,000 flight attendants at Air Canada resoundingly rejected a proposed contract that was negotiated last month after they defied federal back-to-work orders.
The airline said it is not expecting a resumption, however, of the walkout that shut down Canada’s main air carrier for five days last month.
Air Canada said in a statement that it and the union had anticipated that the contract might be rejected and reached an agreement not to restart the strike and lockout if that happened. Instead, talks on the wage portion of the contract will reopen with a mediator’s help. If that fails, the issue will go to arbitration.
The shutdown affected about 500,000 passengers and paralyzed travel in a sparsely populated country that spans six time zones, leaving few practical alternatives to flying for many trips.
The Air Canada unit of the Canadian Union of Public Employees said in a statement on Saturday afternoon that the contract was rejected by 99.1 percent of the attendants. It added that 94.6 percent of them voted.
The union did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Air Canada reopened talks with the union after its workers defied a labor board decision declaring the strike illegal. The resulting agreement included, for the first time at the airline, pay for work that flight attendants perform before and after flights, such as boarding passengers and conducting safety checks.
