we're getting closer to a potential strike by 5200 Air Canada Pilots unless a settlement is reached by Sunday either Air Canada or the airline pilots Association could issue a 72-hour lockout or strike notice Eric vano joins us live with more Eric Adam with this strike looming calls are now increasing for the federal government to intervene many of these calls are coming from business groups who say that a strike could have a major impact on the economy we don't want to get to the point where we are actually talking about a a strike it's just a threat at this point hopefully we can avoid that if we can't then the federal government needs to be prepared to step in the Canadian Federation of Independent businesses says their members rely on Air Canada and A disruption would have a Major Impact it's the tourism industry both domestically and from tourists abroad if we're you know eliminating the one of the largest airlines in the country from from traveling across the country it's not just tourism it then becomes restaurants it becomes local shops it becomes local attraction there's actually very large uh ecosystem that's coming from underneath that that's why the cfib along with numerous other business groups are calling on the federal government to step in saying binding arbitration can help bring the parties to a successful resolution we don't want to see the system shut down we've actually already heard you know the system shutting down for a day isn't really just a day it would take a long time I think it's 7 to 10 days to ramp back up it will have longer lasting impacts and of course the longer it goes the tougher it would get today the airline pilots Association set up a strike headquarters near Toronto Pearson Airport to support its members if a strike occurs the association says Air Canada Pilots are looking for better wages and better work life balance we have uh our most junior members are are earning half of what our our comparators are earning um and more significantly and perhaps more um more challenging to add address is our our quality of life concerns um trying to trying to really improve our our work life balance um trying to improve our our life at work uh to ensure that uh that we're productive while we're while we're away from home in the case of a strike the union says it would be against the federal government stepping in back in in 2012 the government intervened in our bargaining process and uh much of the the struggles we see today in our own bargaining um is is a result of that initial intervention more than a decade ago uh of course we would uh be quite disappointed to see Federal intervention in our bargaining process airic Canada says it is working on plans to start suspending operations flight cancellations could start as early as tomorrow which could leave some Travelers flying with Air Canada stranded am not conern I'm going on vacation and I'm not going to be worrying about that right now yeah I've made arrangements uh in case there is a problem we are supposed to return on the 19th but I booked a different Airline for the next day just in case we have some uh some obligations back home that we think we're going to miss but there's worse places to be stranded than punana I guess the airline pilots Association says there has been some progress in negotiations but they acknowledge that there's a ways to go until Sunday back to you