After months of negotiations and rejections of management offers, Air Transat's 2,100 flight attendants have a new collective agreement.
The deal makes Air Transat FAs the highest paid in Canada, creating a new benchmark for Canadian flight attendant pay.
It also avoids a potential strike that would have been a major headache for consumers and travel advisors.
Following information meetings held from 19FEB to 22 FEB, 62.7% of attendants voted to accept the contract recommendation of federal mediators. The new deal provides for total compound salary increases of 30% over five years, from 1NOV 2022 to 31OCT 2027.
It also provides for the abolition of the first two salary levels in the old contract, which means that flight attendants with less than three years of seniority will immediately access the third level. That represents a significant increase in salary, CUPE said.
In addition, the new collective agreement will secure the number of crew seats on all flights lasting 7 hours or more and those departing Canada after 10 p.m. It will also increase the number of personal leave days and vacation days.
Transat and the union reached a tentative deal earlier this year, but attendants strongly rejected the plan.
"It's been a long and complex process, but we're finally crossing the finish line with substantial pay increases for our flight attendant members,” said Chantal Bourgeois, CUPE National Representative. “This will be an extremely well-deserved adjustment after years of effort to help the company through financial difficulties, followed by the catastrophic years of the pandemic and a period of high inflation.”
"More than 50% of them have been forced to take on a second or even a third job to make ends meet, and their starting salary is only $26,577 per year,” said Dominic Levasseur, president of the Air Transat Component of CUPE.
The Air Transat Component encompasses two local unions based at YUL and YYZ. It is part of CUPE's Airline Division, which represents more than 18,500 flight attendants employed at Air Transat, Air Canada, Air Canada Rouge, Sunwing, WestJet, Encore, Calm Air, Canadian North, Pivot Airlines, Flair Airlines, PAL and Pascan.
