Air Canada to move 140 jobs from Montreal to Toronto

In spite of pressure from the mayor of Montreal, federal politicians and organized labour, Air Canada says it intends to move 140 schedulers’ jobs from Montreal to Toronto in the next two years. The Canadian Auto Workers union has called on the airline to abandon the plan, and a Quebec NDP MP has asked the federal government to intervene.

The mayor of Montreal, Gerald Tremblay, wrote to Air Canada president Calin Rovinescu, pleading with him not to jeopardize Montreal’s position in the aerospace sector by eroding its head office presence in the city. At stake is Montreal’s economic development and competitiveness in the aerospace industry.

"The transfer of strategic functions from Air Canada's head office to other Canadian cities can only be detrimental to the positioning of Montreal and its competitiveness," he wrote.

Air Canada, however, says moving the jobs to its operational control centre in Toronto will help the company improve customer service by having all its people in one place. About 250 employees already work in Toronto, and a new purpose-built facility is to open in 2014.

From Air Canada’s point of view, the move is an operational decision. As with other airlines worldwide, the main operations centre is at the main airport hub, says the company in a statement. “Crew scheduling is an operations function, not a headquarters function.”