The Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) “directed Air Canada to resume airline operations and for all Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge flight attendants to resume their duties by 14:00 EDT on August 17, 2025,” the airline said in a statement.
While it plans to resume flights on Sunday evening, Canada’s flag carrier warned it would take “several days before its operations return to normal.”
Some flights are still set to be cancelled over the next seven to 10 days, it added.
Air Canada cabin crew walked off the job early Saturday over a wage dispute.
Hours later, Canada’s labor policy minister, Patty Hajdu, invoked a legal provision to halt the strike and force both sides into binding arbitration.
“The directive, under section 107 of the Canada Labour Code, and the CIRB’s order, ends the strike at Air Canada that resulted in the suspension of more than 700 flights,” the Montreal-based carrier said.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), which is representing the workers, sought wage increases as well as to address uncompensated ground work, including during the boarding process.
It had previously said its members would remain on strike until the government formally issued an order that they return to work.
It had urged passengers not to go to the airport if they had a ticket for Air Canada or its lower-cost subsidiary Air Canada Rouge.
While it did not immediately issue a response to the back-to-work directive, the CUPE earlier slammed the Canadian government’s intervention as “rewarding Air Canada’s refusal to negotiate fairly by giving them exactly what they wanted.”
“This sets a terrible precedent,” it said.
The union also pointed out that the chairwoman of CIRB, Maryse Tremblay, previously worked as legal counsel for Air Canada.
Tremblay’s ruling on whether to end the strike was “an almost unthinkable display of conflict-of-interest,” the union posted on Facebook.
On Thursday, Air Canada detailed the terms offered to cabin crew, indicating a senior flight attendant would on average make CAN$87,000 ($65,000) by 2027.
CUPE has described Air Canada’s offers as “below inflation (and) below market value.”
In a statement issued before the strike began, the Business Council of Canada warned an Air Canada work stoppage would exacerbate the economic pinch already being felt from US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Canada’s flag carrier counts around 130,000 daily passengers and flies directly to 180 cities worldwide.Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu ordered binding arbitration to end the dispute, after more than 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants walked earlier on Saturday causing 700 cancellations.
The union accused the government of "caving to corporate pressure", having resisted a forced agreement.
Flight attendants are calling for higher salaries and to be paid for work when aircraft are on the ground.
The strike took effect at 00:58 EDT on Saturday, though Air Canada began scaling back its operations before then.
Air Canada said it had suspended all flights, including those under its budget arm Air Canada Rouge, for the duration of the strike, and advised affected customers not to travel to the airport unless with a different airline.
Flight attendants picketed major Canadian airports, where passengers were trying to secure new bookings earlier in the week.
But later on Saturday, Hadju said "stability and supply chains" must be preserved, while the two parties had been "unable to resolve their differences in a timely manner".
She invoked Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code to restart negotiations arbitrated by the government, with a resulting deal being legally binding.
Air Canada, which flies directly to 180 cities worldwide, said the first flights will begin this evening, but cautioned that it would take several days to return its operations to normal.
"During this process, some flights will be canceled over the next seven to 10 days until the schedule is stabilised," it said in a statement. "Air Canada deeply regrets the inconvenience for its customers."
The Canadian Union of Public Employees (Cupe) described Hadju's decision to intervene in the dispute as "violating our charter rights", saying it will cause "incalculable damage" to workers' rights.
It alleges that forcing a bargain to end the strike will "ensure unresolved issues will continue to worsen by kicking them down the road".Cupe has yet to publicly respond to the directive to end the strike.
In contract negotiations, Air Canada said it had offered flight attendants a 38% increase in total compensation over four years, with a 25% raise in the first year.
Cupe said the offer was "below inflation, below market value, below minimum wage" and would still leave flight attendants unpaid for some hours of work, including boarding and waiting at airports ahead of flights.
The union and the airline have publicly traded barbs about each other's willingness to reach an agreement.Earlier this month, 99.7% of employees represented by the union voted for a strike.
Cupe has asserted that it had been negotiating in good faith for more than eight months, but that Air Canada instead sought government-directed arbitration.
"When we stood strong together, Air Canada didn't come to the table in good faith," the union said in a statement to its members. "Instead, they called on the federal government to step in and take those rights away."
