If you receive my daily travel tip newsletter, then you know I’ve been warning readers for a couple of weeks now about a possible Air Canada (AC) strike by their flight attendants. Unfortunately, it looks like it’s coming to fruition as the airline has begun cancelling flights.
One reason they started canceling flights ahead of the strike, which is scheduled for tomorrow (Saturday, August 16), is because many of their flight attendants aren’t showing up for work. Air Canada shared on X yesterday, “We are seeing close to 300 Flight Attendants, twice as much as usual, not reporting for work tonight. This will result in additional cancellations. We regret the inconvenience to customers.”
We are seeing close to 300 Flight Attendants, twice as much as usual, not reporting for work tonight. This will result in additional cancellations. We regret the inconvenience to customers.
— Air Canada (@AirCanada) August 15, 2025
The Montreal-based airline has already cancelled 96 flights so far for today and it’s still really early so expect this number to grow. If Air Canada does shut down tomorrow, it could impact about 130,000 people a day. If you’re traveling on AC this week and in the near future, hopefully you took my advice and booked a back-up flight on another airline, and preferably with miles so you can get fully refunded instead of a travel credit. Don’t book a Basic Economy ticket as those are not changeable or refundable.
Thanks to Gabor Lukacs, president of Air Passenger Rights, who was just interviewed by CTV News, I learned a new tip today regarding Canadian laws, which I’m passing on to you too to make us all better consumers.
According to CTV News: “If you already have a ticket booked and paid for with Air Canada, then Lukacs says that the Canadian Transportation Agency’s regulations are clear: Air Canada is supposed to foot the bill for a new ticket on another airline. In the event of a strike, which is classified as outside of an airline’s control, large airlines such as Air Canada are still required to book customers a new ‘reservation for the next available flight that is operated by any carrier,’ according to Canada’s Air Passenger Protection Regulations. ‘Any carrier means any airline, including, but not limited to, the airline’s competitors,’ said Lukacs, who adds that the airline must put you on the next available flight towards your final destination, no matter the cost.”
During the pandemic, Air Canada was possibly the worst airline in the world in terms of refunding customers’ money. I know firsthand because I had tickets booked for me and my family to travel to Toronto to visit my in-laws. Air Canada wouldn’t refund us and hundreds of thousands of other customers even though they canceled the flight and it was the law in the U.S.
Air Canada said they would only give a travel credit that expired in two years. I was able to get a refund by having my credit card company (Chase) do a chargeback. They were later sued by the U.S. government, specifically the Department of Transportation (DOT), for $25.5 million. They settled in November 2021 for $4.5 million, which included a credit to the airline for refunds already provided to passengers and a $2 million payment to the U.S. Treasury.
Let’s just hope they pay their flight attendants in last-minute talks and avoid a strike so customers don’t have to go down this road again.
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