WestJet starts cancelling flights as pilot strike deadline looms

pilots’ strike despite ongoing talks between the union and the airline.With a work stoppage set for Friday, WestJet CEO Alexis von Hoensbroech said in a May 18 statement that the company wanted to avoid “abandoning aircraft in remote locations without support.”WestJet has now parked the majority of its 737 and 787 fleet.

WestJet Encore, WestJet Link and limited 737 flights will continue to operate, von Hoensbroech said.“We deeply regret the disruption this will have on the travel plans of our guests and the communities and businesses that rely on our critical air service,” he said.“We remain at a critical impasse with the union and have been left with no choice but to begin taking the painful steps of preparing for the reality of a work stoppage.”Bernard Lewall, who heads the union’s WestJet contingent, has said the workers’ issues revolve around pay, job security and scheduling, and says pilots are earning roughly half of what some of their U.S.

counterparts make.WestJet’s chief pilot said in a letter to union members and obtained by Global News earlier this week that the airline had offered “significant” wage increases that would make them among the highest-paid workers in Canada.The union called that data “cherry-picked.”With more than 4,000 flights scheduled over the next seven days, WestJet carries 28 per cent of Canada’s domestic market, while Air Canada runs 47 per cent, according to flight data firm Cirium.Low-budget Flair Airlines, a direct Swoop competitor, has added additional flights to its Vancouver-Calgary and Vancouver-Edmonton routes in anticipation of WestJet pilots going ahead with a strike.More than 1,800 pilots at WestJet and its Swoop subsidiary are poised to walk off the job as of 5 a.m.