‘We are all being as patient as we can’

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This article was published 17/07/2024 (791 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Former Air Canada Technical Services workers laid off in 2012 when successor company Aveos Fleet Performance Inc. went out of business could be in line for more than $100 million in total compensation.

A ruling this week by Quebec Superior Court Justice Marie-Christine Hivon — on a 2022 decision that found Air Canada had violated federal law by failing to keep three maintenance centres (Montreal, Winnipeg and Mississauga, Ont.) operational — has determined how compensation should be calculated for the 2,200 members of the class-action lawsuit.

The estimation for lead applicant in the class action, Gilbert McMullen, was about $230,000; the individual experiences of each of the former employees – including about 400 who were based in Winnipeg at the time — will different. However, lawyers for the workers estimated compensation will be at least $45,400 per employee.

“I think it is very, very conservative to say that it will be more than $100 million (total),” said Anne-Julie Asselin of Montreal law firm Trudel Johnston & Lespérance.

Air Canada is in the process of appealling the November 2022 decision that ruled the company was in contravention of the Air Canada Public Participation Act, under which the carrier had an obligation to maintain aircraft repair facilities in the three cities — a task it had contracted out to Aveos.

The federal government amended the law in June 2016 to ease this obligation.

The Quebec judge had previously decided the second phase of the trial — to determine compensation calculations — should be completed before Air Canada’s appeal was heard.

Asselin said Wednesday it will likely be at least a year before that happens, and likely at least 1 1/2 years before class action members will see any compensation.

Aveos maintained and repaired airframes, engines and other plane components for decades in hangars in Montreal, Winnipeg and Mississauga.

Founded in 1937 as Air Canada Technical Services, the company was spun off from the airline in 2007, before filing for creditor protection in March 2012. It laid off some 2,600 employees and padlocked the three hangars.

The provinces of Quebec and Manitoba sued Air Canada over the closures and a settlement was reached that included a promise from the international carrier to establish a maintenance centre of excellence in Winnipeg, which has not materialized.

Renald Courcelles, a former Aveos worker in Winnipeg who testified during court hearings in Montreal in October 2021, was encouraged by this week’s ruling.

“We are all being as patient as we can. We know it takes time,” he said.

Elodie Drolet-French, a lawyer representing the workers, said ex-employees will need to make individual submissions. “There will be a process that is clear,” she said. “It will be easy.”

The compensation could cover damages ranging from a loss of benefits to “loss of self-esteem,” stress and divorce, according to a release in French from Trudel Johnston & Lespérance.

Meantime, Air Canada stressed Monday’s decision merely lays out a calculation method and calls for proof of losses from individual members.

“It is completely silent on the quantification of the total amount. Any assessment at this stage is therefore pure speculation,” spokesman Christophe Hennebelle wrote in an email.

If the airline’s appeal of the initial judgment succeeds, the latest decision from Hivon will not apply, he added.

If it fails, however, the potential cost could add more woes to a company that faces softening demand for leisure trips, a slow post-COVID-19 pandemic rebound for higher-margin corporate travel and rising competition from a rapidly expanding Porter Airlines.

After a two-year industry boom, Air Canada lost $81 million in its first quarter this fiscal year and its share price has fallen roughly 30 per cent over the past 12 months.

— with files from The Canadian Press

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca