Air Canada strike looms—What it means for your travel plans

there Canada Pilots they voted overwhelmingly in favor of a strike and they could walk off the job as soon as September the 17th here's our travel expert CLA nle who joins us this morning with more on this and other travel headlines CLA good morning to you uh Pilots they have been holding informational pickets at various airports right across the country could you tell us what is this dispute over and just how big of an impact would an air candada strike how big of an impact would it have well the impact would be huge they're the number one carrier here in Canada and I think in the recent memory people are a little nervous about this situation because we just recently had that WestJet mechanic strike and tens of thousands of people were affected so this there's a lot of important things on the table and voting a strike meant for a strike mandate um can be a normal process in negotiation so although it's making people nervous it is a normal part of the process some of the things that are on the table they want uh the pilots Union would like a retirement address scheduling concerns as well as compensation so what I want um people to know is that because it's a normal part of negotiation it doesn't mean that a strike will happen on September the 17th they're in a cooling off period you know fingers and toes are crossed that this will be settled ahead of time if they've seen what happened with West yet they will want to work uh towards a fair deal but because it's now a known event as of last week if you choose to book with there Canada you may not be covered by Insurance okay all right now speaking of this potential the possibility of a strike uh Air Canada has just updated their rebooking policy so what do Travelers need to know with regards to this that's right and I think because people were affected by the WestJet uh strike people who have something that's very very important may be really concerned about that date around September the 17th if they got to get to a wedding or a very important business meeting or something so they H Air Canada has put out a flexible policy it's for those flights that are really close to that September 17th date September 15th through until September 23rd now the details of that are on aircanada.com and you are able to change now you can cancel but you won't get a full refund the details of it look like you will get a travel credit so if you chose to book on a different Airline you wouldn't get that full refund you would have to pay and you'd have a credit sitting with Air Canada all right uh meantime uh Claire Flair has just introduced a new $1 base fair just exactly how is this going to work it almost sounds too good to be true and uh will it make travel will it make it more accessible for people well we're talking about it I mean it's a it's a definitely a good marketing playy and I think a lot of consumers are going to be looking at this I mean dollar based Fair the reality of this you guys is that no Airline can sustain operations with a dollar based fair and the taxes which are dispersements I mean they're going to other people but it's making people look at this now if you drill down on this deal it's essentially for Northbound flights going from say Mexico or the us or the Dominican Republic or Jamaica up to Canada so if you're doing a roundtrip fair you need to factor in that it'll be normal fairs uh combined so I do encourage people to look Apples to Apples because it's a Ultra lowcost carrier and so you would be paying for things like seed assignment or meals on board or baggage even just a a carry on bag but we want our Airlines to be strong and I hope that you know this does well as a marketing Ploy but the reality is is that we've seen three airline cease operation in the past year just recently Canada jet lines links swoop so um I do encourage people no matter what airline you're going on to get travel insurance to protect your investment if you are choosing to do this okay uh we of course are gearing up for the labor long weekend and the US is set for some record-breaking travel yeah like this could potentially be the busiest Labor day on record that's what the US TSA is um coming out with that they're anticipating 17 million people will be going through TSA checkpoints over Labor Day up 88.5% over last year so if you're going going to the US really if you're traveling anywhere uh outside of Canada I do encourage people to do a couple of things obviously pack your patients and lots of time built into this but also use technology wherever you can to help streamline the process for you check in online if you have the ability to book a security appointment now I know that Toronto Vancouver and some of the other large airports across the C uh across Canada will allow you to do that you go to the airlines website and you can book an appointment you have to be there within 15 minutes you get a QR code but boy is that lineup a lot faster and use arrive Camp to come back to do Advanced declaration again you get that fast lineup so um just make sure you pack in enough time I can't I can't say that enough all right a busy long weekend ahead Claire we're gonna have to leave it there for this morning thank you so much for this it's good to see you as always have a great long weekend