Air Travel & strikes: 1)Air Transat pilots notch big wage gains in deal where income was biggest hurdle; 2)Air Transat pilot strike averted; (Updated) 3)Air Transat to start halting flights Monday after pilots issue 72-hour strike notice

1)Air Transat pilots notch big wage gains in deal where income was biggest hurdle

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Christopher Reynolds, Dec. 10, 2025.

A tentative deal has yielded big wage gains for Air Transat pilots, the culmination of nearly a year of bargaining and 10 straight days of intense negotiations that saw wages emerge as the main sticking point.

The agreement in principle announced Tuesday evening narrowly averted a costly work stoppage for Transat A.T. Inc., which owns the struggling leisure airline, and a major disruption for thousands more travellers on the cusp of the holiday rush.

The deal the pilots will vote on in the coming weeks includes a wage hike of more than 60 per cent on average over five years, according to Transat spokeswoman Andréan Gagné.

The boost also means an extra $100,000-plus per year for most captains by 2030, she said.

Transat declined to offer more precise details around compensation or the broader collective agreement before it’s ratified. “We’re not disclosing where we landed,” Gagné said.

Bradley Small, who heads the union’s Air Transat contingent, would not confirm the figures. But he said the deal puts his colleagues in the same ballpark as pilots at WestJet and Air Canada, who achieved big wage gains in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

“Before we were at the bottom of the barrel, and now we’re aligned with them,” Small said in a phone interview.

Union leaders are set to present details of the deal to members next week in Toronto and Montreal, followed by a vote that will wrap up on Jan. 6, he said.

Wages proved the big hurdle in the final two days, with most other issues such as scheduling, insurance and benefits largely sewn up, both sides said. All that remained was compensation.

“The last couple of hours were especially on those increases,” Gagné said. “And we closed the gap.”

“We were creative in certain areas on how we could structure the deal and also help the company,” added Small. “We know they’re fragile.”

Small said his negotiating team shook hands with Transat CEO Annick Guérard and other executives shortly before 7 p.m. on Tuesday at a downtown Montreal hotel, flanked by three federal conciliators.

The mood inside the room — “white wall, nothing fancy” — changed immediately, Gagné said.

The Transat team felt “relieved,” she recalled. “Relieved and happy to go back to normal for our customers.”

“Everybody was extremely tired,” Small added.

“There was a lot of coffee, a lot of DoorDash and Uber Eats.”

The showdown came at a particularly fraught time for Transat as it struggles to manage a large debt load, turn an annual profit for the first time since 2018 and fend off a coup attempt from an activist investor.

Last week, media mogul Pierre Karl Péladeau — who is Transat’s second-biggest shareholder with 9.5 per cent the company’s shares — demanded a strategic overhaul and a board shakeup that would give him and two allies seats in the boardroom.

Tuesday’s deal prevented a fresh round of flight cancellations, Gagné said.

Eighteen flights had already been scrapped in a precautionary wind-down ahead of a Wednesday morning strike deadline from the Air Line Pilots Association, which represents Air Transat’s 750 aviators.

The previously suspended trips included destinations in Mexico, the Caribbean and Peru as well as London, Paris, Spain and Portugal.

All 18 were either to or from Toronto or Montreal and scheduled for Tuesday or Wednesday.

Over the preceding week and a half, the two sides had routinely talked off and on until about 2 a.m. as bargaining intensified, with negotiators spread out across three conference rooms on various floors, according to officials from Transat and the Air Line Pilots Association.

Common ground on wages first began to emerge Monday, but by the early hours of the morning the bargaining teams needed a break.

“When you’re talking about negotiating hundreds of millions of dollars, you’ve got to be very vigilant that you don’t start making crazy and rash decisions,” Small said.

The labour dispute would have marked the third strike in a year and a half in Canada’s airline sector, as workers seek to make gains that match those achieved elsewhere in North America amid the rising cost of living.

Last year, Air Canada pilots notched a wage hike of nearly 42 per cent over four years. The increase outstrips major gains won the previous year by pilots at the three biggest U.S. airlines, where pay bumps ranged between 34 and 40 per cent — although they were starting from a higher baseline.

On the assumption that pilots work roughly 75 hours per month — a common baseline in the industry — newer Air Canada recruits earn between $75,700 and $134,000 versus almost $187,000 in year five, and more than $367,000 for an experienced captain flying a Boeing 777.

In 2023, WestJet pilots secured a 24 per cent pay bump over four years.

2)Air Transat pilot strike averted

Courtesy Barrie 360 and Canadian Press

By Canadian Press, December 9, 2025

Transat A.T. Inc. says it steered clear of a strike after reaching a tentative deal with its pilots on Tuesday evening.

The travel company, which owns leisure airline Air Transat, had been cancelling flights and winding down operations ahead of the possible work stoppage, affecting thousands of travellers.

Neither the company nor the union representing some 750 Air Transat pilots released details of the tentative agreement.

Annick Guérard, president and CEO of Transat, said the airline “greatly preferred” to avoid the threat of a strike.

“We are aware that this period has created significant uncertainty, and we extend our sincerest apologies to our customers whose flights were disrupted in recent days,” she said in a statement on Tuesday evening.

“Our priority now is to quickly restore our operations and deliver on our commitment to provide service that meets our standards.”

The Air Line Pilots Association was aiming for a new contract that boosts wages, job security and quality of life following big gains for aviators at Air Canada and WestJet over the past two years.

Capt. Bradley Small, chair of the Air Transat ALPA Master Executive Council, said the current pilot contract lags behind industry standards in Canada and North America.

“We believe this new agreement meets the needs of today’s profession, consistent with collective agreements other ALPA-represented pilot groups are signing with their employers,” Small said in a statement.

Union members are expected to vote on the agreement in the coming days.

Transat’s flight schedule was severely disrupted this week after it began to cancel flights in anticipation of a labour standoff.

The showdown came at a particularly fraught time for Transat as it struggles to manage a large debt load, fend off a coup attempt from an activist investor and turn an annual profit for the first time since 2018.

Last week, media mogul Pierre Karl Péladeau, who owns 9.5 per cent of Transat — its second-biggest shareholder — demanded a board shakeup and strategic overhaul.

The proposal would see the head of telecommunications giant Quebecor Inc.’s right-hand man there replace Transat chairwoman Susan Kudzman, with Péladeau also gaining a seat at the table.

By Tuesday afternoon, Transat had cancelled more than a dozen flights for that day and the following one.

The cancelled trips included sun destinations in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Peru and Spain as well as London and Paris. All 18 flights were slated to either take off or land in Toronto or Montreal.

Air Transat said it had arranged seven extra flights Monday and Tuesday to ferry some passengers back early from their vacations.

The carrier’s active fleet of nearly 40 planes carries tens of thousands of passengers on more than 500 flights each week.

The Air Line Pilots Association issued a 72-hour strike notice on Sunday.

Transat responded that cancellations would ramp up ahead of a potential strike or lockout, which could have kicked off as early as 3 a.m. ET on Wednesday.

3)Air Transat to start halting flights Monday after pilots issue 72-hour strike notice

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Christopher Reynolds, December 8, 2025

Air Transat pilots set the stage for a strike as early as Wednesday morning, issuing a 72-hour notice to the struggling company on the cusp of the busy holiday travel season.

The Air Line Pilots Association said Sunday it filed the strike notice after failing to find common ground following nearly a year of negotiations with travel company Transat A.T. Inc., which owns the leisure airline.

“We’ve been literally locked down here for a week, and some progress has been made,” said Bradley Small, who chairs the union’s Air Transat contingent, in a phone interview from the bargaining venue in Montreal.

“It’s when we start hammering out the compensation side of it — that’s where things have become very, very difficult.

“Unless significant progress is made at the bargaining table, we will strike if that’s what it takes to achieve a modern contract,” he added in a release.

The carrier, which flies mainly to destinations in Europe and the Caribbean, will inform customers of cancelled flights “and the solutions put in place to assist them,” Transat said.

The nearly 40 active planes in Air Transat’s fleet ferry tens of thousands of passengers on more than 500 flights each week, according to figures from aviation data platforms Cirium and ch-aviation.

Both sides accused the other of failing to pull its weight in the bargaining process.

“They’ve been less than present,” Small, who speaks for some 750 pilots, told The Canadian Press.

Transat human resources chief Julie Lamontagne said the union has shown “no openness” while also pointing to “progress made at the bargaining table.”

“It is regrettable that the union has expressed such indifference toward Transat, its employees and clients by choosing the path of a strike at this time of year — a reckless decision that does not reflect the state of negotiations,” she said in a release.

The labour standoff comes at a particularly fraught time for the Montreal-based company as it struggles to manage a large debt load and turn an annual profit for the first time since 2018.

“It’s never good timing, but especially at this time of the year — we’re leaning into the holiday season,” said Transat spokeswoman Andréan Gagné in a phone interview.

John Gradek, who teaches aviation management at McGill University, stressed the high cost of a potential strike near the height of Christmas travel.

“This is the peak of the peak. The planes are full and the fares are very high,” he said.

At the same time, the board of directors is trying to fend off an attempted coup by media mogul Pierre Karl Péladeau. Last week the head of telecommunications giant Quebecor Inc., who also owns 9.5 per cent of Transat — its second-biggest shareholder — demanded a board shakeup and strategic overhaul. The proposal would see the billionaire’s right-hand man at Quebecor replace Transat chairwoman Susan Kudzman, with Péladeau also gaining a seat at the table.

On Sunday, Péladeau seized on the strike notice to press his case, criticizing the board for a “deplorable situation” and making an unsolicited offer to mediate between workers and management.

“The board of directors is once again demonstrating its inability to manage fragile financial resources, while extraordinary sums are being paid out on professional and consulting fees of all kinds,” he said in a release from his investment firm Financière Outremont Inc.

Transat said it has offered pilots a 59 per cent salary hike over five years and major improvements in working conditions.

The union’s Bradley Small called that figure “very inaccurate” and a product of “creative accounting.”

The pilots say they want the new collective agreement, which would replace one from 2015, to improve compensation, job security, working conditions and quality of life.

In its latest annual report last year, Transat noted that the aviation industry is facing pressure from airline pilot unions amid an ongoing labour shortage.

“The corporation will have to offer working conditions that are competitive with agreements recently concluded in the industry, or many pilots may join competitors,” the document stated.

Small said that “since post-COVID” Air Transat has lost more than 180 aviators, or one in four, many to other airlines with more lucrative contracts.

Last year, Air Canada’s 5,400 pilots negotiated a cumulative wage hike of nearly 42 per cent over four years. The increase outstripped major gains won the year before by pilots at the three biggest U.S. airlines, where pay bumps ranged between 34 and 40 per cent — albeit starting from a higher baseline.

In 2023, WestJet pilots notched 24 per cent pay bump over four years after in a deal that was reached hours ahead of the strike deadline.

Last week the pilots voted 99 per cent in favour of a strike if necessary, with ballots cast by 98 per cent of eligible pilots.

A 21-day cooling off period that followed conciliation talks ends on Dec. 10, when the workers can strike or management can impose a lockout.

Companies in this story: (TSX:TRZ, TSX:QBR.B)