Air Canada has had a really rough week. Air Canada flight attendants went on strike as of Saturday, August 16, 2025, as part of a pay dispute (or more accurately, they were locked out, after issuing a strike warning). That ended up lasting for nearly four days. The government tried to force flight attendants to return to work, but they initially refused, before ultimately agreeing to mediation.
For any of the hundreds of thousands of passengers who were impacted by the strike, Air Canada has at least made a positive announcement with regards to the extent to which the airline will take care of expenses that have been incurred…
Air Canada will cover more out-of-pocket expenses
It’s officially taking Air Canada 7-10 days to fully return to a stabilized operation, though today, the carrier’s full fleet is back in the skies. The airline has also updated its goodwill policy, to cover reasonable additional accommodations and out-of-pocket expenses incurred by customers as a result of the labor dispute.
This policy applies to those who were originally due to travel between August 15 and August 23, 2025. With this policy, Air Canada will cover any reasonable expenses incurred, for hotel stays, meals, ground transportation, flights on other airlines (in situations where Air Canada couldn’t rebook passengers in a reasonable timeframe), etc.
Air Canada states that claims must be supported with receipts, and submitted through the carrier’s customer relations portal. Air Canada will address the claims as quickly as possible, but expects it could take up to six weeks to process all claims.
Here’s how Mark Nasr, Air Canada’s EVP and Chief Operations Officer, described this:
“Air Canada’s 40,000 coworkers, with their exceptional commitment and expertise, have allowed us to restore operations ahead of plan. We now expect to be operating very close to our normal schedule tomorrow. We deeply apologize to all customers whose travel plans were disrupted, and we’re committed to making things right for all customers — particularly those who were stranded during their trip. Earlier this week, we put in place a special commitment to reimburse out-of-pocket transportation costs, including on other airlines, rail, ground or ferries. Today, we are taking another step forward, delivering with our policies to make things right. This updated plan includes reimbursement for reasonable accommodation, meals, necessary transportation and other costs.”
This is the level of care consumers should expect
In its announcement, Air Canada explains that it has updated its “goodwill policy for customers to exceptionally include accommodation and out-of-pocket costs.” I mean, I suppose airlines don’t usually want to cover some of these kinds of expenses, but this just seems like the most basic level of care that should be provided when you have a labor dispute that could have been avoided.
This whole strike situation just feels very Lufthansa Group-esque, in terms of how it just should’ve been avoided altogether, and is an embarrassment for the company. I’ll just keep my opinions to myself beyond that so I don’t ruffle too many feathers, but it sure seems that if Air Canada hadn’t lost a certain executive in 2018, these negotiations would’ve gone a bit more smoothly…
Bottom line
Air Canada has improved its commitment to customers following the flight attendant strike, and is now promising to cover out-of-pocket expenses, including accommodation, ground transportation, etc. These are all things you’d expect would be covered, but it’s now official. I can’t imagine all of this will be very cheap for the airline.
What do you make of Air Canada’s customer commitment following the strike?
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