TORONTO (AP) — Canada's second largest airline, WestJet, said it canceled 407 flights affecting 49,000 passengers after the maintenance workers union announced it went on strike.
The Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association said its members started to strike Friday evening because the airline’s “unwillingness to negotiate with the union” made it inevitable.
The surprise strike affecting international and domestic flights came after the federal government issued a ministerial order for binding arbitration on Thursday. That followed two weeks of turbulent discussions with the union on a new deal.
WestJet said it will continue to park aircraft through Sunday for the long weekend culminating in Canada Day on Monday. The airline has about 200 aircraft and says they’ll operate approximately 30 by Sunday evening.
The airline’s CEO, Alexis von Hoensbroech, put the blame for the situation squarely on what he said was a “rogue union from the U.S.” that was trying to make inroads in Canada.
Von Hoensbroech said that, as far as the airline was concerned, bargaining with the union had come to an end once the government directed the dispute to binding arbitration.
“This makes a strike totally absurd because the reason you actually do a strike is because you need to exercise pressure on the bargaining table,” he said. “If there is no bargaining table it makes no sense, there shouldn’t be a strike.”
He added the union had rejected a contract offer that would have made the airline’s mechanics the “best-paid in the country."
In an update to its membership, the union negotiating committee referenced an order by the Canada Industrial Relations Board that does not explicitly bar any strikes or lockouts as the tribunal undertakes arbitration.
Sean McVeigh, a WestJet aircraft maintenance engineer picketing Saturday at Toronto Pearson International Airport Terminal 3, said the strike is an attempt to force the airline to return to a “respectful negotiation.”
McVeigh said the union regrets any inconvenience caused to passengers.
“However, the reason they (passengers) have possibly missed a flight or had to cancel is due to the reason that WestJet is not respectfully sitting down at the table and negotiating,” he said alongside roughly 20 others on the picket line.
“We take on a lot of responsibility and we would just like to be appreciated financially,” he said.
At Pearson, WestJet passengers Samin Sahan and Samee Jan said they had been planning to leave Saturday with extended family members on a trip to Calgary that had been planned for six to eight months.
Sahan said they had received emails earlier in the day telling them their flight had been rescheduled for Monday, but they went to the terminal anyway. He said their efforts to seek clarification combined with the strike had left their travel plans up in the air.
“This inaction is hurting a lot of people, their own company as well as their customers who will likely no longer be their customers ever again,” Sahan said.
Jan called the situation “sad.”
FILE - A westJet airplane takes off in Calgary, Alta., Jan. 21, 202. Mechanics at the Canadian airline WestJet say they are dropping plans to begin a strike now that the airline has agreed to resume negotiations on a new collective-bargaining agreement. Members of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association had been preparing to walk off the job on Thursday night. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press via AP, File)
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (AP) — Hurricane Beryl ripped off doors, windows and roofs in homes across the southeastern Caribbean on Monday after making landfall on the island of Carriacou as the earliest storm of Category 4 strength to form in the Atlantic, fueled by record warm waters.
There were no immediate reports of possible deaths or injuries, with communications largely down across the region.
Streets from St. Lucia island south to Grenada were strewn with shoes, trees, downed power lines and scores of other debris scattered by winds up to 150 mph (240 kph), just shy of a Category 5 storm. The storm snapped banana trees in half and killed cows that lay in green pastures as if they were sleeping, with homes made of tin and plywood tilting precariously nearby.
“Right now, I’m real heartbroken,” said Vichelle Clark King as she surveyed her damaged shop in the Barbadian capital of Bridgetown that was filled with sand and water. Beryl was still swiping the southeast Caribbean late Monday afternoon even as it began moving into the Caribbean Sea on a track that would take it just south of Jamaica and toward Mexico's Yucatan peninsula by late Thursday as a Category 1 storm.
Late Monday, Beryl's winds increased to 155 mph (250) kilometers, on the brink of becoming a Category 5 storm.
Beryl was located about 575 miles (925 kilometers) east-southeast of Isla Beata in the Dominican Republic and was moving west-northwest at 21 mph (33 kph), with hurricane conditions possible on Jamaica Wednesday.
A hurricane warning was in effect for Jamaica, and a tropical storm warning for the entire southern coast of Hispaniola, an island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
“Beryl is expected to remain an extremely dangerous major hurricane as its moves over the eastern Caribbean,” the National Hurricane Center said.
The last strong hurricane to hit the southeast Caribbean was Hurricane Ivan 20 years ago, which killed dozens of people in Grenada.
On Monday afternoon, officials received “reports of devastation” from Carriacou and surrounding islands, said Terence Walters, Grenada’s national disaster coordinator. Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said he would travel to Carriacou as soon as it’s safe, noting there’s been an “extensive” storm surge.
Grenada officials had to evacuate patients to a lower floor after hospital roof was damaged, he said.
“There is the likelihood of even greater damage,” he told reporters. “We have no choice but to continue to pray.”
In Barbados, Wilfred Abrahams, minister of home affairs and information, said drones — which are faster than crews fanning across the island — would assess damage once Beryl passes.
Beryl strengthened from a tropical depression to a major hurricane in just 42 hours — a feat accomplished only six other times in Atlantic hurricane history, and with Sept. 1 as the earliest date, according to hurricane expert Sam Lillo.
It also was the earliest Category 4 Atlantic hurricane on record, besting Hurricane Dennis, which became a Category 4 storm on July 8, 2005.
Beryl amassed its strength from record warm waters that are hotter now than they would be at the peak of hurricane season in September, said hurricane specialist and storm surge expert Michael Lowry.
Beryl also marked the farthest east that a hurricane has formed in the tropical Atlantic in June, breaking a record set in 1933, according to Philip Klotzbach, Colorado State University hurricane researcher.
On Sunday night, Beryl formed a new eye, or center, something that usually weakens a storm slightly as it grows larger in area. Experts say it’s now back to strengthening.
Jaswinderpal Parmar of Fresno, California, who was among the thousands who traveled to Barbados for Saturday’s Twenty20 World Cup cricket final, said he and his family were now stuck there with scores of other fans, their flights canceled on Sunday.
He said by phone that it's the first time he has experienced a hurricane — he and his family have been praying, as well as taking calls from concerned friends and family as far away as India.
“We couldn’t sleep last night,” Parmar, 47, said.
Even as Beryl bore down on the southeast Caribbean, government officials warned about a cluster of thunderstorms mimicking the hurricane’s path that have a 70% chance of becoming a tropical depression.
“There’s always a concern when you have back-to-back storms,” Lowry said. “If two storms move over the same area or nearby, the first storm weakens the infrastructure, so the secondary system doesn’t need to be as strong to have serious impacts.”
Beryl is the second named storm in the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. Earlier this month, Tropical Storm Alberto made landfall in northeast Mexico and killed four people.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts the 2024 hurricane season is likely to be well above average, with between 17 and 25 named storms. The forecast calls for as many as 13 hurricanes and four major hurricanes.
An average Atlantic hurricane season produces 14 named storms, seven of them hurricanes and three major hurricanes.
Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Associated Press videographer Lucanus Ollivierre in Kingstown, St. Vincent contributed.
A fisherman looks out at vessels damaged by Hurricane Beryl at the Bridgetown Fisheries in Barbados, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
Fisherman Hamilton Cosmos looks at vessels damaged by Hurricane Beryl at the Bridgetown Fisheries in Barbados, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
Sylvia Small, right, waits for police approval to enter the pier to check her boat's damages due to Hurricane Beryl at the Bridgetown Fisheries in Barbados, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
Fishing vessels lie damaged after Hurricane Beryl passed through the Bridgetown Fisheries in Barbados, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
A tree lies on the roof of a house in Kingstown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, after Hurricane Beryl on Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Lucanus Ollivierre)
Fishing vessels damaged by Hurricane Beryl sit upended at the Bridgetown Fisheries in Barbados, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
Fishermen pull a boat damaged by Hurricane Beryl back to the dock at the Bridgetown Fisheries in Barbados, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
A fisherman looks at fishing vessels damaged by Hurricane Beryl at the Bridgetown Fisheries in Barbados, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
A tree slumps after being uprooted by Hurricane Beryl in Kingstown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Lucanus Ollivierre)
Hurricane Beryl's winds batter Carlisle Bay in Bridgetown, Barbados, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
Waves batter a pier during the pass of Hurricane Beryl in Bridgetown, Barbados, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
Day breaks over a pier as Hurricane Beryl passes through Bridgetown, Barbados, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
Waves batter palm trees as Hurricane Beryl passes through Hastings, Barbados, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
Rick Burn takes photos of damages caused by Hurricane Beryl in Hastings, Barbados, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
Youths take photos as Hurricane Beryl passes through Bridgetown, Barbados, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
Members of the Barbados Defence Force clean up a street after Hurricane Beryl passed through Oistins, Barbados, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
A Barbados Defence Force member cleans up a street after Hurricane Beryl passed through Oistins, Barbados, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
A bird flies away from a palm tree after Hurricane Beryl passed through Oistins, Barbados, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
Hurricane Beryl floods a street in Hastings, Barbados, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
Boats lie capsized in a flooded street after Hurricane Beryl passed through St. Lawrence, Barbados, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
The sea floods the street after Hurricane Beryl passed through St. Lawrence, Barbados, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
A man takes photos after Hurricane Beryl passed through Oistins, Barbados, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
Wind blows past a house whose roof blew away during Hurricane Beryl in Kingstown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Lucanus Ollivierre)
Donna Charles, a hotel cook, watches as Hurricane Beryl passes through Bridgetown, Barbados, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
A surfer braves the waves in Carlisle Bay as Hurricane Beryl passes through Bridgetown, Barbados, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
Waves batter a pier as Hurricane Beryl passes through Bridgetown, Barbados, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
A resident carries wood to cover his house's windows in preparation for Hurricane Beryl, in Bridgetown, Barbados, Sunday, June 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
People disassemble a beach bar's awning in preparation for Hurricane Beryl, in Bridgetown, Barbados, Sunday, June 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
People walk off the beach after attending a religious gathering in Bridgetown, Barbados, Sunday, June 30, 2024. Hurricane Beryl strengthened into a Category 4 storm as it approaches the southeast Caribbean. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Sailboats line up to enter a marina ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Beryl in Speightstown, Barbados, Sunday, June 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
Hurricane Beryl's winds batter Carlisle Bay in Bridgetown, Barbados, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
Hurricane Beryl's winds batter Carlisle Bay in Bridgetown, Barbados, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)
