Canadian arbitrator upholds Air Canada's wage agreement

Feb 18 (Reuters) - A Canadian arbitrator on Tuesday largely upheld Air Canada's AC.TO offer to raise its flight attendants' wages by more than 20% over four years, putting an end to a bitter dispute that led to a four-day strike by the carrier's cabin crew in 2025.

The arbitrator's decision is a blow to flight attendants who had argued for higher wages and said the raises offered by Air Canada did not cover their increased cost of living, particularly in high-cost cities such as Toronto.

The tentative agreement between the airline and the Canadian Union for Public Employees was signed in August 2025, but the issue of wages went to arbitration after the two sides failed to reach a consensus.

The arbitrator, Paula Knopf, found the wage rates offered by the Canadian airline, however, were generally within the normative range for this sector and had to be assessed in light of other improvements, the union said in a statement.

Under the agreement, flight attendants will now be paid for work on the ground as well as in the air, receiving a portion of their hourly wages for tasks such as boarding passengers.

Unions representing cabin crew members in North America have been pushing for this change for a few years now, with Delta Air Lines DAL.N becoming one of the first to offer ground pay in 2022.

Knopf also increased the wage rates offered for employees of Rouge, Air Canada's budget airline, arguing they must not fall below the rates of other comparable Canadian airlines.