Travellers stranded despite federal intervention into Air Canada labour strife

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Air travellers across the country continued dealing with hundreds of grounded planes on Saturday as the federal government announced it was ordering a binding arbitration in a labour strife between Air Canada and its 10,000 flight attendants on strike.

In Ontario, passengers who had received notice that their flights were cancelled still showed up to Toronto Pearson International Airport in search of information from Air Canada about alternative options.

Tanya Baron said while fighting back tears that her family was trying to get home to Saskatoon and airline staff had yet to provide them with rebooking options and gave her the runaround.

“They send us here, they send us there. They tell us to call a number where no human ever answers. I get hung up on. They tell us to check the website. There’s just no flights and no way to get home,” Baron said at Pearson Airport.

Noel Nemeth, who was hoping to fly back home to Edmonton, said he also hasn’t gotten any answers on how to get home.

“Patience is a virtue I guess,” he said. “I just have to wait until we can figure something out.”

Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu said hours after the flight attendants initiated the strike just before 1 a.m. ET that she also directed the Canada Industrial Relations Board to order both parties to resume operations.

Though, she added, it could take between five to ten days for regular services to resume. Air Canada had not immediately commented on the latest developments on Saturday.

Sandra Caputi, who was flying home to Thunder Bay, Ont., after spending a few weeks in Greece, was one of the lucky ones who got a competitor flight from Porter Airlines at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport to take her home.

“I asked probably about 10 different people until I got the answer I wanted,” she said.

In Montreal, Bonnie Bradley says with no options available until Wednesday, she decided to book a car to drive 25 hours home to Winnipeg, after spending a 10-day holiday in Newfoundland.

“Conveniently we have camping equipment with us, so we’re gonna camp on our way home,” she said in an interview at Montreal’s Trudeau International Airport.

Despite the inconvenience, her sympathies lie with the flight attendants, Bradley said.

“I do not believe anybody should have to work unpaid,” Bradley said.

“I firmly believe that Air Canada as a corporation could have done a lot more to prepare travellers about this and a much smoother transition could have been managed about shutting things down.”

Monique Cardoso had initially been hoping to use her layover in Montreal from Lisbon to relax ahead of her flight back home to Vancouver the next day.

Instead, she and her husband were left scrambling looking at fares for other airlines.

“We were supposed to spend the day here, and have one last, fun day in Montreal, and then go home,” said Cardoso, her two young children beside her. “But now we’re having to spend our day figuring out how to get home.”

Their connecting flight is still scheduled for 8 a.m. Sunday. It hasn’t been cancelled yet, but with so much up in the air, she said she wants to make sure she’s prepared for whatever could happen.

“It’s going to cost us I’d say triple at this point, if I were to book right now,” she said, noting she hadn’t made up her mind yet about what to do next.

Dmytro Okopmyi, who was trying to get back to Halifax after spending a few days in Toronto with his partner, also said the airline hasn’t offered any options to rebook.

Even if he takes the option to refund his ticket and finds a new flight online, he said he’s worried that the cost to book a new last-minute ticket will be way more than the refund he’s owed.

“They tell us we can get a refund (for our tickets) which would probably be $200, but to buy new tickets is probably going to cost around $1,800,” he said.

Air Canada cancelled more than 600 flights over the past two days in preparation for a potential work stoppage, with more than 100,000 travellers affected, according to the airline.