Air Canada cabin crew continue defying a government order to return to work, leaving hundreds of thousands of passengers stranded worldwide in an escalating pay dispute.
The airline's flight attendants walked out over pay and have ignored directives to resume duties while the dispute goes to arbitration.
Seven members of two British families from East Yorkshire are paying over £1,000 each for replacement flights home after their direct Calgary to London Heathrow service was cancelled.
Pete Dearing, his wife, two daughters and three members of the Robinson family had been exploring British Columbia and the Canadian Rockies when their Friday evening flight was scrapped.
"We didn't know anything about the strike at all," Dearing told The Independent. "It was only when we arrived in Calgary that we noticed that we had an email from Air Canada, basically preparing us that there might be a chance that our flight could be cancelled."
Air Canada claimed it had searched over 120 carriers for alternatives without success. The families say they found suitable flights with a single call to a UK travel agent - routing through Seattle on Alaska Airlines then Virgin Atlantic to Heathrow. They said the fare cost them over £1,000 each and involved a five-hour stopover in the US – for which each of them required an Esta online permit, which cost a further $21 (£15) each.
The two families are due to touch down 48 hours late.
"We feel like we've been abandoned," Dearing said. "We're lucky in the fact that we can whack a flight on a credit card and sort it out later."
"We certainly won't be flying Air Canada again," added his travel companion Mark Robinson.
The government in Ottawa ordered cabin crew back to return to work while the pay dispute goes to arbitration, but flight attendants have ignored the order.
Air Canada said: “The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) illegally directed its flight attendant members to defy a direction from the Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) to return to work.”
Sources used: "The Independent" Note: This article has been edited with the help of Artificial Intelligence.
