Air Canada could also be pressured to pay a minimum of C$100 million ($73.2 million) to about 2,200 former staff after a Quebec courtroom issued a ruling of their class-action lawsuit in opposition to the airline.
The quantity would cowl misplaced wages, misplaced advantages, and ethical damages associated to the closure of Aveos, the service’s former upkeep contractor. Decide Marie-Christine Hivon launched her choice on the calculation of damages this week.
The plaintiffs, nearly all of whom are in Montreal, have been Aveos staff when it locked out staff and ceased operations in 2012. They argued that Air Canada violated a federal legislation that had required the airline to take care of these upkeep operations the place they have been positioned.
Hivon first ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor in November 2022. Air Canada has mentioned it plans to enchantment that judgment, however an appellate courtroom decide delayed the matter till the damages part of the unique trial was accomplished.
Based mostly on preliminary calculations, the minimal the airline could be pressured to pay is round C$100 million, in accordance with attorneys for the previous staff.
However the airline mentioned it’s too early to connect a greenback determine to the case. The claims course of will happen on a case-by-case foundation.
“We now have appealed the primary a part of the judgment on the precept of legal responsibility. We’re contemplating whether or not so as to add factors to the second judgment, which won’t apply anyway if our enchantment within the first half is profitable,” Air Canada spokesperson Christophe Hennebelle mentioned by electronic mail.
“The judgment merely units out a calculation methodology after which requires particular person proof for every member. It’s fully silent on the quantification of the whole quantity. Any evaluation at this stage is due to this fact pure hypothesis.”
{Photograph}: Air Canada airplanes at Vancouver Worldwide Airport (YVR) in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on Thursday, July 11, 2024. Picture credit score: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg
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