A complete shutdown of operations at Air Canada could strand thousands of passengers across the country if the airline fails to reach a deal with its pilots union.
Air Canada said Monday it is finalizing plans to suspend most of its operations for three days, likely beginning Sunday, as talks with the pilot union are nearing an impasse over "inflexible" wage demands.
Air Canada says Express flights will continue to operate, as third-party carriers Jazz and PAL Airlines provide these services.
Windsor International Airport president and CEO Mark Galvin says Jazz operates up to three daily flights to and from Toronto.
"First and foremost obviously we hope that the parties reach an agreement for sure, and what I would say to any passenger is to check their flight, check their connecting flight. Jazz operates the flights from Windsor, but it also depends on when you're connecting and where you're connecting."
He says passengers need to keep an eye out for any updates.
"It's going to be one of those situations where you're going to keep your due diligence up and take a look for your flight number and just do that until you can be sure that there's no impact to you and your flight."
While flights would still operate from Windsor to Toronto, it's not known how a shutdown would impact connecting flights.
"A lot of people forget about their connecting flight if they are connecting, to check their connecting flight as well," said Galvin. "And if you have multiple connections check them all because we don't really know what kind of impact would be from a shutdown like that."
Air Canada projects that the three-day suspension could affect 110,000 passengers daily.
The airline anticipates it would take seven to 10 days for normal operations to resume, once the complete shutdown is in place.
-With files from Reuters