After months of negotiations, WestJet flight attendants went on strike, seeking better pay and working conditions.
On Aug. 3rd, WestJet and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) reached a tentative agreement that is yet to be ratified.
The strike had a powerful impact, leading to the cancellation of 922 flights between Saturday, August 1st and Wednesday, August 5th.
Here’s what happened.
How it started
The dispute was months in the making.
WestJet’s previous collective agreement with its mainline cabin crew expired at the end of 2025. The airline and CUPE began negotiating a new agreement in September 2025, with federal conciliators becoming involved in May 2026.
At the heart of the negotiations was a disagreement over how flight attendants are compensated for the work they perform on the ground.
WestJet uses a “credit hour” system, which is common in the airline industry. Under the system, cabin crew are compensated based on flight time.
The credit-hour rate is intended to account for other duties and protections built into the collective agreement.
The union argued that the system does not adequately compensate flight attendants for the work they perform before and after a flight.
This includes:
Reporting for duty
Preparing the aircraft
Boarding passengers
Other pre-take off responsibilities
WestJet, meanwhile, maintained that cabin crew are compensated for both ground and in-flight duties through the credit-hour system and said its compensation structure complies with Canadian labour standards.
The disagreement became increasingly heated through the summer.
On July 15, WestJet cabin crew voted overwhelmingly in favour of authorizing a strike, with 99 percent voting in favour and voter turnout exceeding 97 percent. The vote did not automatically mean a strike would happen, but it gave CUPE a strong mandate to take job action if negotiations failed.
By July 30, the union had issued a 72-hour strike notice, setting the stage for a possible walkout beginning Aug. 2.
The effect
The strike began on Sunday, Aug. 2, during one of Canada’s busiest travel weekends of the summer.
WestJet began cancelling flights ahead of the strike to prevent aircraft and passengers from being stranded. Once the strike began, the airline’s mainline operations were heavily disrupted.
By the time an agreement was reached, 922 of 2,365 flights scheduled (39 percent) were cancelled, affecting roughly 250,000 travellers.
The impact stretched across Canada and internationally, leaving passengers scrambling to find alternative flights, rebooking accommodations and, in some cases, waiting days to get home.
The disruption also demonstrated just how quickly a labour dispute involving one group of employees can ripple through an airline’s entire network. Aircraft and crews have to be in specific places at specific times, meaning cancellations can continue even after workers return to the job as the airline works to reposition planes and crews.
WestJet began gradually restoring its schedule after the agreement was reached, but warned that it would take time for operations to return to normal.
The deal
After the strike began, negotiations continued and the two sides eventually reached a tentative agreement.
The deal addresses one of CUPE’s central complaints by introducing a **duty period premium.** This is intended to provide additional compensation and honour more of the cabin crews spend performing their duties.
The agreement also includes general improvements to compensation by shortening the gap between WestJet cabin crew compensation and that of flight attendants at competing airlines.
CUPE described the agreement as meaningful progress, particularly because it moves beyond the traditional flight-credit system.
WestJet has not released all of the financial details of the tentative agreement.
However, the airline previously proposed a significant compensation package that included:
A 13 percent wage increase in October 2026
Annual increases of 2.5 percent through 2029
New duty-pay premium worth an additional 12 percent of salary
Retroactive pay
The final agreement may differ from that earlier offer. The fine details of the tentative deal will become more clear once it is presented to members.
One notable point about the resolution is that it was reached through negotiations rather than government intervention.
Federal mediators had been involved in the bargaining process, but the government did not impose a settlement.
Now what?
WestJet’s immediate priority is to stabilize its network. Although the strike ended, not every flight will immediately operate by schedule.
WestJet needs to reposition aircraft and crew, work through the backlog of cancelled flights and accommodate passengers whose travel plans were disrupted.
That means travellers with upcoming WestJet flights should continue checking their flight status before heading to the airport.
For WestJet and its cabin crew, there is another important step ahead: ratification.
The tentative agreement will be presented to WestJet cabin crew for a vote. Until it is ratified, the new collective agreement is not final.
For now, however, the immediate crisis has been contained.
The longer-term question is whether the new agreement resolves the underlying concerns around compensation and working conditions… Or whether some of the same issues will resurface when the next round of bargaining begins.
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