WestJet, mechanics union ordered into arbitration

Good evening and thanks for joining us. It has been a tense time for WestJet passengers with another strike deadline looming. More flights were cancelled preemptively today, the second time that's happened in weeks, leaving passengers in the lurch ahead of the Canada Day long weekend. Then late today, a development to the federal labor ministers has stepped in. Seamus O Reagan imposing final binding arbitration on the airline and the mechanics union saying in a statement the party still remain far apart today and tensions have only increased since last Tuesday. Heather York's West is following developments in Calgary. Heather, what is the union's response to these developments? Well, Donna, the president of AMP, the unions, told me last week that it did not want to see this process head to binding arbitration. And in a statement this afternoon, the union pointed out that the board has only stepped in seven times in the last 45 years. WestJet, however, taking a different approach, it says that the government's actions today has saved the summer travel plans for many Canadians. There will be no strike this weekend. No doubt a huge relief to the more than 250,000 people WestJet said had been scheduled to take flights over the long weekend. And Heather, for people who have WestJet tickets for flights in the days and weeks ahead, it then looks at this stage like they don't have to worry. Yeah, there should be some relative confidence that if you are scheduled to fly with WestJet, that your flight will not be impacted by this labor dispute anyways. However, there have been some disruptions in anticipation of this flight. Of this strike, about 30 flights were cancelled in anticipation. WestJet said that those were necessary in order to safely ground the fleet. The good news is WestJet is required by law to compensate those passengers for rebooking costs. Why just has to attempt to reboot the passengers on one of wedges, own or its partners flights that departs within nine hours of the original departure time, meals and accommodation and lump sum compensation up to $1000 depending on how long the delay caused to the passenger. Now, WestJet says it is now working to ramp up operations as soon as it can. There will be no additional cancellations as a result of this dispute. In total, though, about 3300 passengers have been impacted by those preemptive cancellations. But again, that is just a fraction of the more than 250,000 passengers that would have been disrupted had this strike gone ahead. Donna. All right. Heather, your request at Calgary International Airport. Thanks.