WestJet’s Thursday flights to and from Yellowknife have been cancelled as the airline prepares for an expected strike and lockout involving its pilots.
Pilots at both WestJet and low-cost carrier Swoop are set to walk off the job at 1am on Friday, although talks around pay, job security and scheduling are continuing on Thursday.
The Air Line Pilots Association says the workers involved earn less than half of some pilots at equivalent airlines in the United States. WestJet says the union’s full set of demands is extreme.
By 7am on Thursday, WestJet’s flight status website and the Yellowknife Airport arrivals board each showed that flight 221 from Calgary to Yellowknife had been scrapped.
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The return flight, WS 222 back to Calgary on Thursday, also shows as cancelled.
What happens to flights set for Friday and beyond is not yet clear. While WestJet is expected to try to maintain some flights if the strike and lockout goes ahead, the vast majority of scheduled services would be cancelled.
