Flight attendants union urges government to reject airlines’ claims on unpaid work

MONTREAL — Canada’s main flight attendants union is crying foul on airline submissions to the federal government for its probe into unpaid work in the sector.

In a letter, the head of the union’s airline division says the self-audits on wages that airlines provided to authorities this month rely on a narrow and “misleading” definition of what constitutes work in order to show that cabin crew are paid fairly.

Wesley Lesosky called on Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu to reject the submissions, claiming they fail to reveal that many junior flight attendants effectively work for less than minimum wage when activities such as boarding passengers, passing through security and conducting pre-flight checks are taken into account.

Waiting during delays and commuting between hotels and the airport also amount to time spent at the disposal of the employer, according to the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents 20,000 flight attendants at the country’s biggest airlines, as well as some regional ones.

“When calculating the normal hourly rate of pay, all of these hours should be included as working time” — rather than simply the period between departure from the gate and arrival at the next — Lesosky wrote.

Because the submissions draw on a more limited set of time spent on duty, they “overstate earnings, understate hours worked, and produce misleading conclusions” about compliance with the Canada Labour Code, the letter claims.

In Air Canada’s self-audit, obtained by The Canadian Press, the country’s largest airline said it found no instances where flight attendants’ hourly rate fell below minimum wage.

“Compensation structures consistently produced effective hourly rates at or above minimum wage requirements,” the summary states.

National Airlines Council of Canada CEO Jeff Morrison has said current practices already comply with labour laws and compensate flight attendants fairly for their work.

Ottawa launched an investigation of the airline sector in August 2025, when negotiations between Air Canada and the union representing its cabin crew boiled over into a strike that saw planes grounded as workers took to the picket lines.

Central to that work stoppage were allegations from the union that flight attendants are regularly subjected to unpaid work when aircraft are grounded.

In response, Hajdu asked her department to look into whether workers in the sector were being paid below a standard set by the federal minimum wage.

Findings from the first phase of that probe, published in February, found little evidence that unpaid work was widespread in the industry, although investigators flagged some issues with part-time and entry-level flight attendants for a closer look.

Hajdu said at the time the federal government needed more data to fully settle the issue.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 27, 2026.

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Christopher Reynolds, The Canadian Press