Canadian travellers can breathe easy again as pilots and Air Canada appear headed for a settlement in their lengthy labour dispute.
The pilots association announced Saturday it will accept a special mediator's report as the basis for a tentative contract agreement with Air Canada.
The association also advised Air Canada and the office of Labour Minister Claudette Bradshaw that the union will not issue any strike notice.
"For the time being the public should take some solace," Captain Raymond Hall, chairman of the pilot union's executive council, said from Winnipeg. "There's not a threat to the public of a strike within the next several weeks."
But he cautioned: "We still are in a position that we could strike if the membership does not ratify the agreement."
An estimated 50,000 passengers - 40 per cent of Canada's domestic air travel - fly on Air Canada's about 600 flights a day.
"I am very pleased that the uncertainty is now over for Air Canada's customers," said Robert Milton, chief executive officer and president of the airline.
"The four-year term of the agreement will provide us with the necessary stability to realize the company's true potential for growth as a major global carrier," Mr. Milton said in a news release.
The pilots association and Air Canada will meet over the next few days to clarify some points in the report of mediator Bruce Outhouse and to work out final contract language, a news release from the association said.
Once those meetings conclude, a revised collective agreement will be put to union members for a ratification vote, expected to be held over the next few weeks.
Mr. Outhouse's report recommended a four-year contract with wage increases of about 13 per cent and more job security for pilots including no layoffs or forced relocations - even to any new carriers created by Air Canada - until April, 2004.
"We came to the conclusion that we should accept what was on the table," pilots spokesman Serge Beaulieu said in an interview Saturday.
"We didn't get pay parity (with U.S. pilots) - at least not for now," Mr. Beaulieu said. "That's a longer-term project and we'll cross that bridge when we get to it."
Mr. Hall was cautiously optimistic.
"We had some concerns with the recommendations and we still have concerns," he said. "I'd say we're not enthusiastic about all of the provisions, but we're going to try and work with this to see if we can get acceptable language."
The proposed contract would be retroactive to April 1, 2000.
The 2,200 pilots, who had been prepared to strike Sept. 1, were seeking to close a wage gap with their U.S. counterparts at United, American and Delta who are paid about 30 per cent more.
A pilot with 12 years or more seniority who flies one of Air Canada's three Boeing 747s has a top salary scale of $240,160.
That's well below the $324,072 paid to pilots with the same experience flying a Boeing 747 for United Airlines, the world's largest airline.
United also reached a tentative agreement Saturday with its pilots but terms of the deal were not immediately disclosed.
Air Canada pilots had asked for a three-year contract that would open with a wage jump of 8.75 per cent followed by 3- and 2.5-per-cent increases.
Air Canada has offered a 14.5-per-cent increase over five years and other benefits it said would cost the airline $250-million.
An intense round of contract talks began June 28 at a Montreal hotel after the pilot's union voted 95 per cent in favour of a strike mandate.
The pilots' two-year contract expired April 1, just 18 months after it was signed following a 13-day strike in September, 1998 that shut down the airline.
Pilots with the former Canadian Airlines will be watching closely for the final contract details.
Under a recent agreement with the Air Line Pilots Association at Canadian Airlines, any gains made by Air Canada pilots would also apply to Canadian Airlines pilots.
The same-treatment pledge is a result of the recent integration of Air Canada and Canadian Airlines.