Air Transat pilots vote to strike if new contract with the airline can’t be reached

Air Transat Pilot and Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) member Capt. Bibianne Lavallée poses at the Air Transat Pilot Strike Centre in Montreal, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025, following a 99 per cent vote in favour of a strike mandate. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

MONTREAL — Air Transat pilots have voted to strike if their union is unable to reach a new contract with the airline.

The Air Line Pilots Association said Wednesday the pilots voted 99 per cent in favour of a strike if necessary as 98 per cent of eligible pilots voted.

The union says contract talks between Air Transat pilots and the airline began in January and the two sides left conciliation on Nov. 18. A 21-day cooling off period ends Dec. 10, when the roughly 700 pilots can strike or management can impose a lockout.

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Bradley Small, the union’s master executive council chair at Air Transat, says the pilots’ goals are to secure job security and to improve working conditions, compensation and quality of life.

“Let us be clear, we do not want to strike. Our goal remains to reach an equitable agreement at the negotiating table,” Small said in a statement.

“However, after nearly a year of slow bargaining and little progress, we urge management to utilize the remaining time and negotiate seriously to avoid operational and flight disruptions.”

Transat has struggled in recent years amid stiff competition for vacation destinations and a big debt burden, though it announced a major restructuring of pandemic-era debt earlier this year that forgives hundreds of millions of dollars owed.

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The company, which sells vacation packages and Air Transat flights largely to spots in Europe and the Caribbean, also continues to deal with engine recalls that have grounded four of its 43 planes.

On Monday, media magnate Pierre Karl Péladeau demanded a strategic overhaul and a board shakeup — as well as a seat at the table — as Transat’s second-largest shareholder once again made a gambit for more control at a company he tried and failed to buy as recently as 2021.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 3, 2025.