Last Updated on March 25, 2026

The last thing I searched for on the Internet was “Air Canada strike 2025”. In a nutshell, Air Canada, recording annual revenues in 2024 of $22.3 billion (Air Canada, 2025), is Canada’s largest airline, allegedly due to protectionist policies. In 2024, Air Canada reached a last-minute tentative agreement with their pilots union to avert the pilot strike. Merely a year later, after failing to reach a collective agreement with the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) – representing Air Canada’s flight attendants – the CUPE issued a 72-hour strike notice as the members voted 99.7% in favour of a strike mandate. Meanwhile, the employer, Air Canada, began preemptive cancellations to minimize the impacts days before the strike (Rana, 2025). Ever since I heard the news (the strike notice), I had a premonition that it isn’t just some labour dispute but a modern slavery issue (euphemistically called class war).

*This article is inspired by Daily writing prompt.

Air Canada’s astounding Labour Dispute

what happened?

Air Canada, the largest airline in Canada, had sought government intervention prior to the strike. In hope of resolving labour issues with fair bargaining (between the employer and the employee, the union, in this case) process, the CUPE had declined the offer to enter the federal arbitration process, which may ultimately take pressure off the employer. However, less than 12 hours after the strike had begun, the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) ordered the crew members to return to work.

From the labour dispute to class war

After eight months of negotiations, the employer and the union could not reach a collective agreement. The union reported that junior flight attendants of Air Canada struggle with unlivable wages and they find it unfair to perform numerous hours of unpaid work, while learning that Air Canada has recorded achieving the highest annual revenues over the last few years.

The representative of the employer, the COO of Air Canada, on the other hand, believed that their offer on the table was fair, and they needed answers from the CUPE (union) why they asked their employees to continue the “unlawful strike”. The COO reiterated that their priority is their customers and “to get the planes back in the sky“.

In 2023, the CEO of Air Canada, Michael Rousseau, earned a 233% pay raise (Dailyhive, 2023). If this is not class war, what is?

why did class war happen?

Davis (2025) pointed out that Kharas & Hamel (2018) suggested that over 50% of the people worldwide were either middle class or rich. I do not support the ideology of “social stratification” or social categorization. Nevertheless, social segregation is happening right here right now on the democratic soil.

Class war happened because of various reasons in the past (as in decades or centuries ago), from extreme poverty to women’s rights. Before the modern world – emphasizing equity and equal opportunities for all human beings – was introduced, most titles (including assets) were inherited (by males predominantly) from one generation to another. The truth is, due to the lack of proper education, many are accustomed to the old way of living (what they are familiar with, like their class – even if it is irrelevant or it limits their potential) to this day.

Learnings from the 2025 labour dispute between Air Canada and the CUPE

The Air Canada labour dispute, impacting 100,000 and counting travellers (and the supply chains), tells me that the head of the company may not value their customers (as stated in 2025 by the COO and spokesperson of the company) as much as they declared. If they had prioritized their customers’ needs, they would’ve demonstrated a healthy employer-employee relationship.

“With great power comes great responsibility”

Marvel comics

Regrettably, not every corporation embraces “transformational leadership”, in fact, from my perspective (with a deep understanding of Intersectionality), the company may have difficulty transitioning from a traditional business model to a customer-centric model.

“Customers” is the real affected party in the labour dispute

According to Forbes, a Gallup Workplace study indicated that customer-centric companies saw a whopping 25% increase in customer loyalty.

When I first saw this article, I instinctively looked up its source. Unsurprisingly, like many similar articles “for educational and informational purposes” on the Internet, the process of data collection, data analysis and limitations are not readily accessible.

If the management team of Air Canada had fully understood what a “customer-centric” approach is and had leveraged relevant techniques to support the framework, labour disruption wouldn’t have taken place during the peak travel season.

It may appear that the company is hemorrhaging the trust of (distinguished) customers as a result of the labour dispute turned into class war. However, the real affected party in the labour dispute is unequivocally “the customers”.

On August 19, 2025, Air Canada’s passengers proposed 2 class action lawsuits against them – the same day both parties finally reached a tentative agreement.

what would i do differently?

As a frugal (my lifestyle) and a person who loves giving, I would reevaluate my people’s incentives periodically. I value efficiency and effectiveness, so I would no doubt opt to review the employee perks “ahead of time”.

I would encourage “open communication” and provide adequate human skills training and workshops relevant to my organizational culture. Furthermore, I would create a welcoming environment where the management team supports “dynamic learning”. Customer centricity originated from a person-centered approach, where the provider’s main focus is the person’s (customers’, in this case) experience. Although I am speaking from a small business owner’s perspective, I sincerely believe the most effective way to build “real” customer loyalty (not because of a lack of competition) is to have a strong employment relationship.

There would be no “management” if there were no “hardworking” employees. In other words, without the frontline employees, there would be no customers.

The light at the end of the tunnel

Even though I worked in both unionized and non-unionized environments before, my experience is a single event. Overgeneralization is one of the many reasons why miscommunication occurs. Therefore, I regard the incident as a learning opportunity for all.

The stories of the frontline workers resonate with me because I was one of the frontline workers in my industry who was misunderstood, underpaid and unrecognized due to systemic issues and a lack of open communication, but “playing the blame game gets people nowhere”.

From my perspective, I see a management team that needs to be reformed. I also see a company culture that needs to be shaped.

I am hopeful that companies, especially large corporations (who are responsible for many individuals and their families) will understand that the most indispensable asset of a healthy and sustainable organization is human capital. In addition, I hope public organizations will promote the true meaning of DEI and collaborate with organizations that embrace “dynamic learning”, support “open communication”, and “celebrate different cultural beliefs and events, but understand the meaning of citizenship” to resolve identity crises.

I too, didn’t choose to speak up on many occasions in the past due to oppression and racial discrimination. Admittedly, I used the wrong ways to express my pain and suffering when I was younger. Human skills resources were scarce, even if I majored in applied social sciences.

Did I mention I was bullied by a sociology course lecturer who was a firm believer in Marxism (and studied in Germany previously)? Just because I asked the Teacher Assistant (TA) to further explain a few philosophical concepts that didn’t make sense to an 18-year-old me. It’s rumoured that the TA reported to the lecturer that “I was testing the TA’s knowledge”, so I became a target in class. And I only found this out because someone gossiped about it.

Given what happened to me and many other workplace challenges, I do not want history to repeat itself. Hence, the light at the end of the tunnel: the creation of Berelevant Network.

A lack of empathy often leads to class war

Class war occurs in modern day because the system is flawed. In simple terms, the current (modernized) system traditionally invites the working-class and the middle-class workers to move up (or climb the corporate ladder) by attending higher education. Those who choose to partake in such an arrangement will, in most cases, sooner or later, become the upper middle-class workers. Yet, during this process, many have realized no position is sustainable unless “they fight each other at all times”. It is actually like The Hunger Games or Squid Game. The privileged (or the aristocrat) will stay where they are, watching the rest competing for limited resources resulting from uneven distribution of resources. The reality is brutal, and many do choose to stay in power regardless of what it takes.

As a Chinese proverb goes, “It is easy to go from frugality to extravagance, but difficult to go from extravagance to frugality”.

A lack of empathy is often what turns a dispute or misunderstanding into class war. On top of all the predicaments, unfortunately, empathy is a skill, but it is still at times mistaken for a personality trait.

Showing empathy is the most effective solution to abrogating a dispute

When a person relates to an experience because they have lived experience themselves, that’s not empathy, that’s called having a shared experience. The power of empathy lies in “I am not you, but I am willing to stand with you, and learn your pain and suffering”. In this case, when the responsible party (the employer) has great financial influence on another party (the employees), empathy plays a crucial role. Showing empathy signifies, “It doesn’t matter our differences in socioeconomic status perceived by society, we are all in this together because you are valuable. Without you, there would be no us, and no customers”.

As a former employee and the founder of Berelevant Network providing human skills development services, I can empathize with both parties on deeper levels. On a personal level, I reckon this class war would’ve been preventable if both sides had received proper human skills training and had been willing to communicate effectively¹.

endnote

To communicate effectively¹: see the historical meaning of communication skills and read the 6 human skills to thrive for businesses in the age of AI

References

Air Canada. (2025, February 13). Air Canada Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Financial Results. https://www.aircanada.com/media/air-canada-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2024-financial-results/

Rajan, G. & Singh, R.K. (2024, September 15). Air Canada reaches last-minute deal with pilots union, averting strike. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/15/business/air-canada-deal-pilots-union

Lord, C. (2025, August 18). Carney ‘disappointed’ by Air Canada impasse, urges both sides to reach a deal. Citynews. https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2025/08/18/air-canada-flight-attendants-strike-carney/

Baxter, D. (2025, August 16). Air Canada flight attendants in Winnipeg angry after feds order binding arbitration. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/air-canada-flight-attendants-in-winnipeg-angry-after-feds-order-binding-arbitration-1.7611042

Rana, U. (2025, August 14). Why is Air Canada cancelling flights before a strike actually happens? Global News. https://globalnews.ca/news/11334870/air-canada-cancelling-flights-before-strike/

Mukherjee, P., Lampert, A., & Oo, K. (2025, August 16). Canadian government moves to end Air Canada strike, seeks binding arbitration. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/canadian-government-moves-end-air-canada-strike-seeks-binding-arbitration-2025-08-16

Air Canada cancels plans to resume operations as flight attendants defy back-to-work order. (2025, August 17). CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/air-canada-flights-sunday-1.7611078

CP24. (2025, August 17). ‘We’ve got to get the planes back in the sky:’ Air Canada COO [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UntRf5ugyA8

National Trending Staff. (2023, April 10). Air Canada CEO got paid $12.4 million in 2022 — a whopping 233% pay increase. Dailyhive. https://dailyhive.com/canada/air-canada-ceo-pay-increase-2023

Meester, A. (2023, July 18). Why Customer Centricity Is A Key To Long-Term Success. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesbusinesscouncil/2023/07/18/why-customer-centricity-is-a-key-to-long-term-success/

Lau, R. (2025, August 19). 2 class action lawsuits proposed against Air Canada in Quebec. CTVnews. https://www.ctvnews.ca/montreal/article/2-class-action-lawsuits-proposed-against-air-canada-in-quebec/

The Canadian Press. (2025, August 19). Air Canada strike ends after tentative deal reached with flight attendants’ union. CTVnews. https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/article/flight-attendants-union-says-tentative-deal-reached-to-end-air-canada-strike/