TORONTO — Air Canada (AC) and its CUPE-unionized flight attendants have reached a tentative agreement Tuesday morning, thus ending the unprecedented strike action.

The union claimed it has finished mediation with the airline and its low-cost affiliate Air Canada Rouge. At the same time, the carrier stated it would gradually restart operations and that a complete restoration might take a week or longer; some flights will be canceled throughout the next seven to ten days until the schedule is stabilized.

According to Reuters, the airline withdrew its third-quarter and full-year earnings guidance due to the strike, the first cabin staff strike in 40 years, which lasted for almost four days.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees said via Facebook, "The Strike has ended. We have a tentative agreement we will bring forward to you." With that, the union declared the end of what it portrays as unpaid labor, but the specifics of the talks were not made public right away.

Flight Cancellations

According to Cirium data, as of Tuesday morning, AC has cancelled a total of 533 flights, including 280 domestic and 253 international services. The disruption spans several days, with the heaviest cancellations occurring between August 15 and 19. 

On the domestic side, cancellations escalated from 15–18 daily earlier in the week to 91 on August 15, before surging to near-total shutdowns with 345 cancellations on August 16, 352 on August 17, and 353 on August 18. Although operations partially recovered on August 20, with 55 cancellations, the cumulative domestic toll has reached 1,509 flights out of 2,818 scheduled.

International operations followed a similar pattern: only a handful of cancellations occurred on August 13 and 14, but the number jumped to 108 on August 15 and peaked with 373, 372, and 370 cancellations between August 16 and 18. 

On August 19, 253 international flights were cancelled, followed by 119 on August 20. Overall, 1,606 international flights have been cancelled out of 2,895 scheduled.