Air Canada flights back on schedule

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VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Air Canada‘s operations are back to normal after a weekend of chaos across the country.

Many passengers were stranded, including travelers booked on Air Canada flights out of YVR.

Airline spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick says while weather, a fire at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport and other factors affected operations, “some impact was the result of a higher-than usual pilot book-offs.”

Air Canada believes the mass sick-out over the weekend may have been a tactic in the on-going bitter labour dispute with pilots. It has asked the Canada Industrial Relations Board to step in.

News1130 reporter Joanne Abshire is at Vancouver Airport speaking with travelers. This man is flying back to Toronto with Air Canada. His flight wasn’t cancelled, but he tells News1130 he was still a little stressed.

“The day before you worry because there was no advanced notice what was going to happen at all. We might of booked with WestJet had we known when we left that Air Canada was going to do this.”

Others travelers say they were well prepared and booked with US carriers to avoid any headaches.

Meanwhile, at the same time pilots were calling in sick, a company contracted to work on Air Canada laid off hundreds of workers, including 350 in Vancouver.

Fred Hospes is with the union representing local machinists.

“There are a lot of unanswered questions right now. We’ve been trying to contact Air Canada and Aveos.  Aveos is not responding to any of our calls. We have not had any dialogue at this point in time with Air Canada.”

He adds he could tell something was up at Aveos Fleet Performance because he says business decisions were being made that made no sense.

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