WestJet did not breach collective agreement rights when it required former Sunwing pilots to take accrued vacation in blocks of fewer than five days to fill gaps in transition training, an Ontario labour arbitrator has ruled.
In Westjet, an Alberta Partnership v Air Line Pilots Association, Sunwing Master Executive Council, Arbitrator Eli Gedalof dismissed a grievance brought by the Air Line Pilots Association’s Sunwing Master Executive Council (MEC).
The case arose after Sunwing pilots transferring to WestJet were moved through mandatory ground school and simulator training, creating idle periods in which the company scheduled short blocks of accrued Sunwing vacation and restricted access to guaranteed days off (GDOs).
The dispute centred on a negotiated Pilot Transition Process (PTP), attached to a prior seniority integration award, which was designed to manage the movement of Sunwing pilots into WestJet’s operation. Under Article 3‑1.1 of the PTP, Sunwing pilots could be required to take their accrued Sunwing vacation between April and November 2025 or have it paid out. The question was whether, even in that window, the normal collective agreement rules requiring five‑day vacation blocks with attached GDOs still applied.
Parties’ positions on vacation rights
The MEC argued that pilots remained continuously covered by either the Sunwing or WestJet collective agreement and that the PTP merely gave the company more control over timing, not structure, of vacation use. Both agreements state that, subject to narrow exceptions, vacation is bid and awarded in five‑day blocks, with provisions for attaching GDOs or Vacation GDOs. In the union’s submission, nothing in the PTP expressly removed those rights, and clear language was required to override long‑standing entitlements.
The union said the company’s practice of assigning two‑, three‑, or four‑day blocks of accrued Sunwing vacation into gaps between training events, without GDOs, amounted to an improper unilateral rule. It asked that pilots be credited back for days taken in contravention of the five‑day block and GDO language. It also cited authorities emphasising that silence on a point, such as block length, should not be read as consent to undercut negotiated protections.
WestJet, by contrast, characterised the PTP as creating a distinct “integration vacation” regime that necessarily modified normal vacation provisions during the transition.
It relied in particular on Article 3‑1.2, which provides that “[e]ligible vacation periods may be limited by training dates and operational requirements and pilots may be required to use vacation following transfer and while in line for training.” The company argued this clause was drafted precisely to allow the use of vacation to cover whatever gap existed between ground school and simulator training, even when that gap was shorter than five days.
Evidence and arbitrator’s reasoning
Evidence from Captain Kevin Collins, a Sunwing pilot leader, confirmed that transitioning pilots began with three days of initial ground school and that accrued Sunwing vacation was assigned in short blocks to bridge to simulator sessions. Collins testified that about 70 Sunwing pilots had reported receiving vacation in blocks of fewer than five days and that GDOs could not be placed adjacent to those vacation periods. On cross‑examination, he agreed that the short blocks were used to fill gaps between training events, and he did not identify any other purpose for the assignments at issue.
Arbitrator Gedalof described the case as “primarily an interpretive dispute” over how the PTP and collective agreements fit together. He accepted that clear language is generally required to override collectively bargained rights, and he found that Article 3‑1.1, standing alone, did not clearly displace the five‑day block and GDO rules, since the eight‑month window could accommodate them. However, he held that Article 3‑1.2 was a specific, transition‑only provision that expressly addressed vacation use while pilots were “in line for training” and had to be read as a “special provision” prevailing over more general language.
Gedalof concluded that the reference to “vacation” in Article 3‑1.2 was not confined to pro‑rated WestJet vacation, but “clearly encompasses both Sunwing and WestJet vacation” in the training‑gap context. He found that the clause was intended to let WestJet “fill gaps in the training necessary to begin flying for WestJet, with employee‑earned vacation,” rather than paying pilots to sit idle. On the evidence, he accepted that accrued Sunwing vacation in blocks of fewer than five days without GDOs had been used only for this purpose.
“For all of these reasons I find that the company was entitled, under the terms of the PTP, to assign Sunwing pilots their accrued vacation in blocks of less than five days, specifically when it was assigned to fill a gap of less than five days while in line for training,” Gedalof wrote in the decision.
As there was no evidence of broader misuse, the grievance was dismissed and no remedy was ordered.
One Alberta court previously ruled that WestJet wrongfully dismissed an employee who refused to comply with the airline’s COVID-19 vaccination policy, as the company failed to adequately consider her request for a religious exemption.
Separately, a B.C. court is expected to rule in the coming days on whether to approve a proposed $4.5‑million settlement between WestJet and thousands of current and former female flight attendants who say the airline failed to properly protect them from workplace harassment.
