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Air Transat reaches another tentative agreement with its flight attendants

If you’ve booked a flight on Air Transat, rest easy — the airline says it has reached a new tentative agreement with its flight attendants. It comes after the 2,100 flight attendants, represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), rejected an earlier tentative deal. Air Transat said the new deal was hammered out following five days of what it called “intense discussions.”

“We are happy to have concluded a new tentative agreement that satisfies both parties and that will enable Air Transat to remain competitive. In response to the unforeseen rejection of the first tentative agreement last week, we immediately returned to the bargaining table to explore all possible solutions. We are confident that this new offer will meet our flight attendants’ expectations and will adequately reflect their interests,” said Julie Lamontagne, chief people, communications and sustainability officer of Transat.

Air Transat will not comment on the details of the tentative agreement, out of respect for the process and the members who must still vote on the agreement.

CUPE said the collective agreement for these flight attendants, based at airports in Montreal (YUL) and Toronto (YYZ), expired on Oct. 31, 2022. Negotiations began officially on April 27, 2023. On Nov. 27, the flight attendants adopted a strike mandate by a nearly unanimous vote of 99.8%, by far the highest tally in the history of CUPE’s Air Transat Component.

Subsequently, a tentative agreement between the parties was reached on December 14. But at general meetings held between December 20 and 23, the flight attendants voted 98.1% to reject it, with 87% of members participating.