Why Were Air Canada Flight Attendants Striking? Boarding Pay Was a Central Issue

Business|Why Were Air Canada Flight Attendants Striking? Boarding Pay Was a Big Issue.

Flight attendants for Air Canada ended a three-day strike on Tuesday, allowing the airline to slowly restart flying.

Details about the deal were sparse but the flight attendants union suggested that it had secured a benefit that had become a big focus of contract talks: pay for work done on the ground before and after flights take off and land.

“Unpaid work is over,” the union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents more than 10,000 flight attendants at Air Canada and a subsidiary, said in a brief statement. “We have reclaimed our voice and our power.”

The strike, which began on Saturday, resulting in more than 2,000 flight cancellations, had brought fresh attention to a common airline pay practice. Many airlines have for years paid flight attendants based on how many hours they work when the cabin doors are closed, not including the time it takes to get passengers on and off planes.

How do other airlines handle boarding pay?

For decades, most flight attendants in North America were not paid for boarding. In 2022, Delta Air Lines became the first major U.S. carrier to pay employees for that time, a change it introduced during a campaign to unionize the company’s flight attendants. American Airlines and Alaska Airlines, where attendants were represented by unions, have since started paying for boarding, too.

But boarding pay remains uncommon. United Airlines has agreed to offer boarding pay in contract talks with flight attendants taking place now.