WestJet Resumes Flying After Tentative Cabin Crew Deal

WestJet mainline flying is coming back online after the airline and its cabin crew union reached a tentative agreement that ends the work stoppage.

Do not treat that headline as proof your flight is already normal.

WestJet says full network recovery will take several days, and some flights may still cancel or shift while aircraft and crews reposition.

What the airline confirmed on August 3

WestJet’s August 3 newsroom release says the airline and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), representing WestJet Cabin Crew, reached a tentative agreement that ends the work stoppage and network-wide operational disruption.

The same release states that both the strike and lockout notices are withdrawn.

The deal now goes to WestJet cabin crew for a ratification vote, so labor peace is not a final permanent contract yet.

Chief executive Alexis von Hoensbroech said teams are working to restore service and get guests moving again, and he apologized for the frustration the disruption caused. That is airline language for a multi-day rebuild, not an overnight switch back to the printed schedule.

WestJet’s traveler advisory page matches that timeline. It posts the agreement under the heading that the airline is gradually resuming operations, and it keeps an active advisory window for travel from July 30 through August 6, 2026.

If you only read social posts saying “the strike is over,” you can miss the operational half of the story. The work stoppage is ending, but aircraft, crew pairings, and guest reaccommodation still have to catch up.

How large the disruption already was

Before the tentative deal, mainline 737 and 787 flying was the core problem. WestJet’s cancellation board and independent reporting put hundreds of mainline flights offline across the Civic Holiday weekend in Canada. Reuters reported on August 2 that cabin crew walked out after talks failed and that more than 600 flights were cancelled through Tuesday, with roughly 250,000 travelers affected in the first wave of the holiday weekend disruption. WestJet’s own cancellation updates had climbed to 645 total cancellations by late on August 2 Mountain Time, and those figures matter because every cancelled bank leaves aircraft and people out of place for the rebuild.

Encore Q400 flying and partner codeshares were the relative bright spot during the stoppage. WestJet had said Encore Q400 service and partner-operated codeshares were not the same work-stoppage universe as mainline 737 and 787 flying.

That distinction still matters for rebooking.

A guest who can accept a regional turboprop itinerary may move sooner than a guest who needs a mainline long-haul seat that only returns once the 787 fleet is fully re-crewed.

Deep Arrival’s earlier report on the stoppage, WestJet Strike Begins, Grounding Mainline Flights August 2, covered the day the mainline network came down. This update is the reverse phase: the deal that lets flying rebuild.

What travelers should do before leaving for the airport

Start with flight status, not with hope. Open the WestJet app or website and confirm the exact flight number still shows as operating for your departure date. Then check email and SMS for the latest rebook or cancel notice, because WestJet is still moving people onto later flights and partner metal. Use Manage Trips as the primary self-service path if the airline has not already rebooked a cancelled segment, and expect that next-available options may include other airlines when WestJet metal is still short.

If you no longer want to travel, request a refund through Manage Trips rather than waiting in a phone queue that may still be overloaded. Agency and third-party bookings should go back to the seller who issued the ticket, because WestJet cannot always rewrite those PNRs the same way.

Vacation packages follow a different desk. WestJet points package guests to Sunwing Vacations, WestJet Vacations, or WestJet Vacations Québec for hotel and air-inclusive help, not only to the airline flight change page.

Arrive with more buffer than a normal WestJet day.

Crews, bags, and gates can still run behind while the airline rebuilds banks, even on flights that ultimately operate.

If your trip connects to a cruise, wedding, or prepaid hotel that cannot move, treat residual cancellation risk as real through at least August 6. Buy a backup plan only after the current WestJet segment shows confirmed and ticketed, not after a social post about a tentative deal.

Flexible change and cancel rules still in force

WestJet is still advertising flexible change and cancel help for the disruption window. On the cabin-crew bargaining update page refreshed August 3, the airline says guests travelling July 30 to August 6, 2026, can make a one-time change or cancellation at no additional cost.

That is broader than some early notices that stopped at August 4. Use the current Manage Trips flexible tools and the live advisory, not a screenshot from last week, when you decide whether to shift a trip.

Deep Arrival’s earlier post on the original flexibility window, WestJet Offers Free Change or Cancel for July 30 to August 4 Travel, remains useful background on how the policy started. For action today, prefer the August 3 advisory language that stretches guest options through August 6.

A free change still has inventory limits. Moving a cancelled Calgary to Toronto bank onto the next open seat may mean a different airport, a different time of day, or a connection you did not want. Read the new itinerary end to end before you accept it. If you change dates, recheck bag fees and seat selections using Deep Arrival’s WestJet baggage fees page and the sitewide carry-on size chart when a rebook puts you on different metal or a partner airline with stricter cabin limits.

For the refund and rebooking baseline that applies when an airline cancels your segment, use Deep Arrival’s flight cancellation rules guide before you accept a weaker itinerary under pressure.

Encore, codeshares, and U.S. or sun connections

If your ticket is WestJet Encore on a Q400, do not assume it was grounded with mainline jets. Encore continued operating through the stoppage in WestJet’s earlier guidance, and those flights can still be the fastest way home while mainline rebuilds.

Codeshare seats operated by partner airlines follow the operating carrier’s aircraft and crew. Confirm which airline’s metal you are actually boarding, then follow that carrier’s status tools if WestJet is only marketing the flight.

U.S. travelers on WestJet mainline routes into or out of Canada should still expect irregular operations for several days. A tentative Canadian labour deal does not instantly restore every Seattle, Las Vegas, or Florida bank that was pulled during the wind-down. Sun destinations and European long-haul flying depend on 737 and 787 crew availability, so multi-leg vacation holders should verify every WestJet-operated segment rather than only the first outbound. Lineup pressure at Calgary, Toronto Pearson, Vancouver, and other hubs can linger after a network stoppage even when the first flight is shown as on time.

What is still unknown

WestJet has not published a flight-by-flight restore timetable in the August 3 agreement release.

The carrier says further return-to-service details will come as they become available.

Ratification by cabin crew is still ahead. A tentative agreement ends the immediate work stoppage machinery, but it is not the same thing as a fully ratified multi-year contract already in force.

Compensation formulas for delayed or cancelled guests remain a separate Canadian air passenger protection question. Do not invent a fixed dollar amount from social media; document your itinerary, keep boarding passes and hotel receipts, and follow WestJet’s guest updates and the official passenger-rights path for your itinerary type.

Inventory for free rebooks will tighten as thousands of disrupted guests try to move at once. Early self-service action is more reliable than waiting for a perfect original routing to reappear.

Check status, lock the rebook or refund in writing, and only then rebuild the rest of the trip around the seats WestJet can actually fly.