WestJet CEO, President address mechanics union strike, flights cancellations | FULL

two like they’re probably like three in taller than me I’ll stand on my tippy toes how about that yeah good plus weeks are a lot easier do tomor you we can move that a few hours for you so has it been the same really close they time hello um thank you for joining us here today I just wanted to um let you know who we have with us and uh what our hopeful intent for this format is going to be uh we are joined today by both our uh chief executive officer Alexis Von Holbrook and we are joined by WestJet Airlines president dedric Penn uh we’d like to open with both of them saying a few brief remarks and then we will try and do a bit of a moderated Q&A only because there’s two of them here so just to keep some some order to how the questions come um and if that works for everyone I will invite dedri up to say a few words good morning and thank you for joining us this morning I’d like to First acknowledge the uh unnecessary impact this is having on Canadians um we’re devastated um talking to our media team talking to our social media team Our Guest contact center Canadians are missing wedding celebrations well-deserved holidays they’re missing important medical appointments family reunions and the stress and the devastation this is causing is unnecessary and hurts all of us we’re outraged and I just want to make sure that you’re rest assured that we are doing everything we can to get this resolved and to get an intervention thank you yeah good morning everyone I can only reiterate what our president just said it is devastating where we are and it’s particularly disappointing as you all know uh the minister has ordered the CB to um mandate arbitration so with this the bargaining process has actually ended because an arbitrator is going to decide on the contract and not the bargaining table this makes a strike totally absurd because the reason why you actually do a strike is because you need to or you may need to exercise pressure on the bargaining table if there is no bargaining table it makes no sense which basically means that there shouldn’t be a strike so in our view and the way I also read The Minister’s tweet this morning also in his view the crb and Ana who has gone on strike have actually not followed what the minister wanted which is industrial peace and the resolution of this on an arbitrated basis so we are now faced with the situation that makes it extremely difficult for our guests and that will only grow in difficulties and in magnitude as you progress through time so we are also awaiting for clarification from the minister as he has uh announced this morning to come later during the day thank you some order to questions so what’s the next move is there anything to so we are uh we are waiting to hear uh from the minister what the clarification could look like and um expect that this is going to happen over the next couple of hours for all the flights that have been cancelled uh will any of those people be compensated Beyond uh what West provides for hotels that they were unable to access or amenities that they were supposed to be why should be providing any compensation to them um we uh abide by the regulation and the regulation has stipulated we obviously return money and as a gesture of Goodwill uh we do provide some uh some depending on uh on the flights uh an overnight hotel stay um uh but uh further than that we’re not in a position to uh to provide any additional compensation uh also looking at the significant impact that is already having having on on West can you speak more about that impact what does that economic impact for now I’d just like to uh state with the impact it is having on our guests today we’ve had already had to cancel 235 flights that has impacted already 33,000 guests and that is devastating are you um canceling more PLS um if no solution is uh is uh is coming today we would be canceling another 150 flights today day so that would make it even worse um is there a certain time that you need to know by before you decide to cancel those EVS early afternoon mountain time if you were someone hopping on a flight and you were in the position of a passenger would you advise them to be looking at a different Airline at this time if they’re flying today or tomorrow or this week um it depends on obviously the purpose of their travel I cannot decide where people have to go and why uh um we are obviously working on resolving this as quickly as possible um and uh and I would I would leave it with with the guest as I cannot decide for uh for the guest what’s the uh where where are you most what’s the biggest Gap what ises you guys I think it’s uh a pretty unprecedented measure that the minister actually stepped in to mandate arbitration and uh a minister wouldn’t do this unless the would be a very strong reason to do so the government has always been following our bargaining process very very closely the federal um conciliation team has been uh at the table and has been watching this very closely so they’re very much across how how the parties act and um obviously the government determined by knowing how things have been progressing that there’s no solution inside especially because there’s one party that is currently acting very unreasonable is calling for strike that is doing nothing but damage but is serving no purpose because there is no bargaining uh and also a party that has rejected an offer that would make that would have made our aircraft maintenance Engineers the by far best paid in the country with a more than 20% Gap compared to the next best and uh they say this is not enough we don’t want industry they recognize it’s industry leading they said we don’t want industry leading we want industry changing and that’s obviously divorced from reality that’s not how bargaining works and that’s where the whole process broke down um how busy is Canada Day long weekend compared to other normal weekends we uh we have around 70,000 guests a day um and a normal weekend would be between 60 to 65,000 so it is obviously the purpose of the travel as well as the load factors as well as the number of flights it is significantly more than a uh than a normal weekend do you have an estimation of financial impact to last J that this might cause by day uh we will assess this in hindsight obviously the economic impact is significant but our Uh current thinking is about how to resolution this and about the impact that has on our guests because we don’t want our purpose is to serve guests and get them to where they want to go and not to cancel their trips and causing Lots and lots and lots of terrible stories that these guests are then exposed to how many place did you say today 235 what was it yesterday it was around 25 but I believe this is Network wide and not just yeah sorry that is Network wide yes good point so you said there 33,000 guests impacted today alone we have a question around whether or not there are any conversations taking place between West Jet and the union this weekend um at the moment there are no discussions taking place we are exchanging some documentation um but we are not there are no discussion is taking place as UD has said um the minister has stepped in and the minister has said mandatory uh arbitration um and uh the crb is involved to facilitate this and just as another reminder the union doesn’t seem to want to negotiate um a week ago we had a first strike notice and then they resined that strike notice uh after we agreed to have four incremental four additional days of bargaining on the first day after a few hours while we were still negotiating they issued the next strike notice which just shows their only purpose was to disrupt as many Canadian travel as as possible and actually not come to conclusion at the table and then even exercising the strike after the minister has ordered mandatory arbitration makes no sense whatsoever because there’s no leverage to the table as there is no bargaining table as an arbitrator is going to decide on the outstanding open issues so this is a very uh very destructive thing um basically done by a rogue us Union that’s trying to make inroads into Canada and uh taking some practices in here that are very very unusual and that myself in 25 years of experience in this industry and having negotiated lots and lots of collective agreements I have never experienced before at WestJet we have 11 different bargaining units with 10 of them we came to a good conclusion with very generous and fair contracts with our Union partners for our valued uh staff members and in not a single case we were even anywhere close to where we are right now and I think this speaks both to our own uh track record in coming up with very strong agreements and being a fair and reasonable uh partner in negotiations but it also speaks to that this has not been the case here while we haven’t not where we haven’t changed the union is a different one and they are acting clearly in bad faith and creating all this damage today um how long can you maintain minimal service without mechanics um minimal service we will operating around 30 to 35 aircraft we’ll be operating around 150 flights and we will be able to continue doing that for some time and how do you choose which flights are cancelled and which ones might be delayed if there’s a problem for that um we try to uh we uh we aim to operate the 787s um because we believe that that is crucial to keep operating those for our guests and then we’ll try to uh connect our main our main destinations in a minimal frequency um are are you canceling more flights than strictly necessary given the absence of mechanics um we operate all the flights we’re safely able to do we have time for one more question thank you very much for coming today thank you we will continue to more information cancellations we also have information on our website just a bit of a fact app thanks for having us thank you for asking all question e e

WestJet CEO Alexis von Hoensbroech is set to provide an update from the airline’s Calgary headquarters on Saturday morning. This comes after WestJet had to cancel at least 150 flights on Saturday after the union maintaining the airline’s planes announced it went on strike hours earlier.

The Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA) announced its members started to strike at around 5:30 p.m. (MT) on Friday in response to the airline’s “unwillingness to negotiate with the union made the strike inevitable.”

WestJet has condemned the move by the mechanics union, saying it’s “extremely outraged at these actions and will hold AMFA 100 per cent accountable for the unnecessary stress and costs incurred as a result.”

The strike comes after the Canadian federal government issued a ministerial order for binding arbitration on Thursday. The order also followed two weeks of turbulent discussions with the union on a new deal.

In a post shared to X on Saturday, Minister of Labour Seamus O’Regan Jr. said he is reviewing the decision on the matter by the country’s labor board – a decision he called “clearly inconsistent with my direction.”

“I will be taking additional steps to protect the interests of the employer, the union and all Canadians traveling over this national holiday weekend,” O’Regan wrote.

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