more disruptions May lie ahead for Air Canada passenger thou thousands of pilots from the airline could walk off the job in a matter of weeks and demonstrations are being held today at several major airports across the country the cbc's Lindsay Dunc is tracking developments live from the Vancouver International Airport so Lindsay what are the pilots calling for well what they want is significantly more money Andrew in addition to better retirement benefits and a greater work life ba balance the Air Canada Pilots are at the end it expired last September of a 10-year agreement that goes all the way back to 2014 so this new collective bargaining process which has been going on uh since June of 2023 is to really deal with a lot of those issues and the competition uh has different agreements with their pilots in fact the the union t us that at the Legacy airlines in the states that recently negotiated some of those Pilots are making around double what the Air Canada Pilots are and of course WestJet Pilots just recently renegotiated a Collective Agreement that saw them making 24% more over a 4-year period so uh the union says they are looking to be treated or have an agreement that is closer in line with their counterparts at other airlines here's what they told us our our objective here is not to go on strike we don't want to cancel flights we take tremendous Pride getting our passengers to their destination day after day 365 days a year Air Canada has the ability to stop this they have the ability to prevent flight cancellations they just have to finally come to the bargaining table and actually present an offer that reflects the value uh we bring to this Airline now Air Canada says it doesn't want a strike either when it comes to its perception of what's happening at the bargaining table Air Canada says they have made progress on significant issues but because they're dealing with an expired contract that was a decade long it will take time it describes the strike mandate vote of the Union which was really strong at 98% as part of the process right now what we're in is a cooling off period the soonest any job action whether it be a lock out or a strike could happen is September 17th so what's happening at airports across the country with these Pilots lined up with their signs is is kind of a public relations uh exercise here for Pilots to let the Travelers who are coming and going know what it is that they're looking for because of course in this climate uh what you're looking for is public support and when people are are sick of having troubles whenever they travel that's not easy for either side to get so if a strike happens Lindsay what would this mean for travelers a lot of frustration you know there are 5,000 a Canada flights we're talking of disruptions to you know around a thousand flights a day H think of the what could happen in in smaller communities you know we we know what happened in terms of WestJet uh job action earlier this year and how frustrating that was for many people at a at a Peak Travel period so we are hearing from both the union and from Air Canada that they don't want to get to that point there are also plans being made though just in case it does and to deal with some of that you know anticipatory stress of people who may have tickets Air Canada has said that Travelers who have tickets and are scheduled to travel on the airline uh that week where things might happen from September 15th to September 23rd they can rebook they take the same trip just at a different date up until November I believe uh at no additional charge or fees we all know there's a lot of fees when you change a flight so um they're trying to make that go uh a way if people want to plan uh a different trip to avoid um any potential strike but again both sides saying in this conciliatory cooling off period they're hoping that that a deal can be reached Lindsay thank you the cbc's Lindsay Dunc live at Vancouver's International Airport