Breanne O’Neill and Amanda Tysoski should be on their way to Amsterdam.
Instead, because of a wildcat strike in Toronto by disgruntled Air Canada ground crew employees, the would-be travelers are spending their Friday at Thunder Bay International Airport, re-arranging their flight plans and hoping to get off the ground sometime soon.
“It’s pretty frustrating not making it one step further to Amsterdam today. It would have been nice to even get to Toronto to try to figure this out and just be out of Thunder Bay a little bit,” Tysoski said, standing a dozen deep in a line of upset passengers trying to get answers from the airline, whose employees earlier this month were subject to back-to-work legislation at the hands of the federal government.
Her traveling companion was no happier about the situation, which began late Thursday night when federal Labour Minister Lisa Raitt was spotted walking through Toronto’s Pearson Airport terminal. Raitt authored the legislation, which denied pilots and ground crew the right to strike and forbade the company from locking out its employees as part of the labour dispute.
O’Neill simply wanted to start her journey to Europe, where they plan to backpack their way around the continent.
“Once we hit Toronto we’re with different airlines. But we don’t want to pay to go with a different airline out of Thunder Bay,” she said.
The action, started by baggage handlers in Toronto who slow-clapped Raitt, leading to the suspensions of three workers. It quickly spread to Vancouver and Montreal, and ultimately led the airline to fire 37 employees, whose jobs were saved on Friday when an arbitrator stepped in to successfully end the work stoppage.
Thirty-seven people who were fired as a result of the action will get their jobs back.
The job action delayed dozens of Air Canada flights, including an early morning flight from Thunder Bay to Toronto.
Two other flights were outright cancelled, standing passengers like Ottawa’s Jeff Cipin, in Northwestern Ontario to film a mining documentary in the Sioux Lookout area.
“When you wake up in the morning you think you’re going to be able to get on your plane, and when you hear about a wildcat strike? In 2012, a wildcat strike? Do these people really think this is how they’re going to get public support?” Cipin said.
“I believe people are entitled to resolve their labour issues however they see fit, but they should think pretty hard about taking that kind of action. Do they really want us to sympathize with the government instead o them? I don’t think so.”
Cipin had a pretty good reason for wanting to get home on time; or at least a good Canadian reason.
“What I’m really upset about? It’s the last hockey game of my season tonight and I’m going to miss it. And I’m probably going to miss the beer drinking afterward. That really annoys me, Air Canada.”
Taking another airline out of the city was not an option as the wildcat strike wore on.
Porter Airlines, Bearskin Airlines and WestJet each saw flights quickly fill up as passengers jumped ship from Air Canada.
Jennifer Wearn, station manager for WestJet in Thunder Bay, said the movement was swift on Friday morning as passengers realized Air Canada flights were on an indefinite hiatus.
“We have had a lot of Air Canada guests come on over and book with us. We are sold out for the remainder of the day and our flight this morning was booked solid. But tomorrow morning we still have some availability if people are interested in booking with us,” she said.
Follow Leith Dunick on Twitter: @LeithDunick
