The Calgary-based airline WestJet has signed a tentative agreement to avoid a labour strike threatened by the union representing its pilots. The strike would have forced the airline to ground the majority of its planes heading into a travel-heavy May long weekend.
WestJet and the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), which represents around 1,800 pilots working for WestJet and its subsidiary company Swoop, signed the agreement just hours before the strike deadline in the early hours of the morning on May 19.
The tentative agreement ends about eight months of negotiations between ALPA and WestJet, through which the union was requesting “better job security, industry-standard pay, and more flexible schedules to allow for a better work life balance” for the pilots….