Air Canada is planning to hire hundreds of flight attendants at a lower wage scale for its new low-cost airline.
In a letter of understanding signed with the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represented Air Canada’s existing flight attendants, set out the new pay scale for the budget airline and included a 53-page tentative labour agreement reached on August 1.
Under the tentative pact, which would be retroactive to April 1, Air Canada flight attendants would receive wage hikes of 2% in each of the first three years, and 3% in each of the final two years.
Air Canada now looks to receive approval for the new budget airline from the Air Canada Pilots Association, whose members rejected a tentative contract in May that would have established a lower wage scale for pilots at the budget carrier.