Air Canada abruptly ended its press conference Thursday after a lineup of union members entered the room and held signs reading “unpaid work won’t fly” and “UnfAir Canada,” among other statements.

Before the news conference ended, the airline revealed details on its plans to ground all flights by Saturday if a deal with the union isn’t reached.

Some long-haul flights due to depart tonight have already been cancelled. Air Canada plans to cancel 500 trips Friday in a step towards a total stoppage Saturday morning.

The disruption would impact about 130,000 customers per day, including several thousand Canadian travellers who are at risk of being stranded abroad, Air Canada executives explained Thursday.

Will tickets be rescheduled?

Air Canada says it’s actively rescheduling tickets with other airlines, including competitors.

But, it’s peak travel season, chief operations officer Mark Nasr explained, and the airline’s capacity to rebook “will be very limited.”

“Please do not come to the airport unless you have a confirmed flight,” he said.

Air Canada will offer affected customers a full refund or a new ticket for a later date at no additional cost.

Union disrupts press conference

As Air Canada executives answered reporters’ questions on Thursday, a handful of Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) members streamed into the room with signs protesting the airline.

They stood silently, most of them flanking the stage.

The demonstration prompted Christophe Hennebelle, Air Canada’s vice-president of corporate communications, to address the flight attendants directly.

“I’m asking CUPE, one last time the question: ‘Are you preventing us from continuing with a press conference?”’ he asked, before being met with silence.

“Unfortunately, we will have to interrupt this press conference here. I am really sorry about the questions we have not been able to answer.”

The union issued a notice earlier this week to strike just before 1 a.m. EDT on Saturday. The airline also plans to lock those workers out.

What’s on the table?

If Air Canada flight attendants accept the company’s latest offer, they will be the best-compensated staffers in that position in Canada, according to the airline. But the union says that’s not the full picture.

Flight attendant compensation consists of base pay, incentive rewards, a pension plan, health benefits, bankable sick days, paid vacation and discounted travel options.

Half of Air Canada mainline flight attendants earned more than $54,000 annually last year, excluding incentive rewards and health and pension benefits, Air Canada wrote in a handout provided to journalists.

Their salaries increased through their first 10 years of service, and “by 10 years, an airline attendant is making roughly $70,000,” said Arielle Meloul-Wechsler, Air Canada’s chief human resources officer. “A service director is making more than that.”

“And on top of that, you would add on our offer of 38 per cent,” she said.

The union says it has not seen that offer.

“They keep saying 32, 38 [per cent] packages of this and that,” said Natasha Stea, who represents flight attendants in Montreal and spoke to reporters outside the news conference after it was cut short.

She added that the union had been offered a first year’s salary bump of eight per cent. “Inflation is nine per cent, so we’re still under inflation.”

The Bank of Canada put Canada’s total consumer price index – the principal measure of inflation – at 1.9 per cent in June. In a statement published earlier this week, the union wrote the eight per cent offer was lower than total inflation accrued since 2015 over the course of their last contract.

Stea said that Air Canada is putting a price tag on things like pensions, benefits and crew rest periods, then “using that price tag to say that we are the most compensated.”

“But if we go down to the basics of this, the money coming into our pockets to pay for rent, transport and food is only the wage part.”

“We still have members living out of their cars,” said Wesley Lesosky, CUPE’s airline division president, during a press conference later Thursday.

“Today, a junior Air Canada flight attendant working full time will earn just $1,952 a month, pretax,” he said.

He said a key sticking point for the union is unpaid work. Flight attendants are not paid for certain work done when a plane is not in the air, including things like boarding, deplaning and preflight safety checks, said Lesosky.

Will Ottawa step in?

Air Canada asked Ottawa to send negotiations to binding arbitration, Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu wrote on X Thursday.

She said she’s asked the union to respond to Air Canada’s request, adding that federal mediators are available to step in, but stopped short of saying she would order them to do so.

The union asked to respond by Friday. Hajdu agreed to that request.

“I understand this dispute is causing a great deal of frustration and anxiety to Canadians who are travelling or worrying about how they will get home,” her statement continued. “I urge both parties to put their differences aside, come back to the bargaining table and get this done now for the many travellers who are counting on you.”