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WestJet canceled nearly 700 flights through Sunday, disrupting the plans of nearly 100,000 passengers, as an unexpected strike by aircraft mechanics entered its third day on the busiest travel weekend of the season.

Around 680 employees, whose daily inspections and repairs are essential for the airline’s operations, went on strike on Friday evening despite an instruction from the Federal Minister of Labor to enter into a binding arbitration procedure.

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Since Thursday, WestJet has cancelled 687 flights scheduled to take place between then and the end of the long Canada Day weekend, according to tracking service FlightAware.

By Sunday morning, 77 percent of daily flights had been canceled, with WestJet leading the list of major airlines with the most cancellations worldwide on Saturday and Sunday.

Trevor Temple-Murray was one of thousands of customers who rushed to rebook their trips after they were cancelled less than a day before.

“We just have to wait and see,” said the Lethbridge, Alabama, resident, who was waiting in line in the parking lot of Victoria Airport, trying to get a flight to Calgary. His wife and two-year-old son were sitting next to him in the car.

Their 6:05 p.m. flight had been cancelled and they would not find out until that evening whether the flight scheduled for the next day at 7:00 a.m. would take place.

“There are a lot of angry people there,” said Temple-Murray, pointing to the airport.

READ MORE: WestJet strike: Are you flying from YVR this weekend? What you need to know

Other travelers vented their frustration on social media – sometimes using flowery language.

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One customer said the airline did not inform him until 11:12 p.m. on Saturday that his flight from Las Vegas the following day had been canceled, calling the last-minute decision “despicable behavior.”

Both WestJet and the Airplane Mechanics Fraternal Association accused the other side of refusing to negotiate seriously.

WestJet Airlines President Diederik Pen has highlighted what he says are “continued reckless actions” by a union that is making “blatant efforts” to disrupt Canadians’ travel plans. The association claimed the Calgary-based company has refused to respond to its latest counter-proposal. In an update to members on Sunday, it said the mechanics were “victims of WestJet’s vicious PR campaign that they are lawbreakers” and spoke of “vilification” of workers related to their right to strike.

Not everyone was upset about the turbulence on the labor market over the weekend.

“We are seeing a huge increase in bookings, presumably because passengers are trying to save their long weekends,” said Kim Bowie, spokeswoman for Flair Airlines.

The industrial action came after union members overwhelmingly voted against a tentative collective agreement with WestJet in mid-June and two weeks of tense talks between the two parties.

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As the clock counted down to the strike ending on Friday, the impasse prompted Employment Minister Seamus O’Regan to intervene, ordering the airline and union to undergo binding arbitration in the country’s employment tribunal.

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This procedure is usually used to circumvent a work stoppage. WestJet certainly agreed, saying the union had “confirmed that it will comply with the order.”

“In this context, there will be no strike or lockout and the airline will no longer cancel flights,” the airline said on Thursday.

The mechanics disagreed. The union’s negotiating committee said it would “follow the Minister’s instructions and instruct its members to refrain from any unlawful industrial action.” Less than 24 hours later, the workers were on the picket line.

A decision by the Canada Industrial Relations Board appeared to confirm the legality of their actions, despite the protocols surrounding arbitration, a process that typically prevents work stoppages rather than causing them.

“The board is of the opinion that the referral by the ministry does not result in a suspension of the right to strike or lockout,” the court wrote on Friday.

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O’Regan said the next day that the panel’s decision was “clearly inconsistent” with the direction he had given, but later added that he respected the panel’s independence. He met with both sides on Saturday evening.

“I told them they need to work with the Canada Industrial Relations Board to resolve their differences and finalize their initial agreement,” he said in a social media post.

However, O’Regan has broad powers under Canada’s Labour Code. Although his original instruction to the tribunal for binding arbitration may have assumed that a strike was not an option due to precedent, the labour minister could take a number of steps to “secure industrial peace and create conditions favourable to the resolution of labour disputes,” the law states.

“For this purpose, the Minister may … instruct the Board to take such measures as he considers necessary.”

Both parties wanted to meet on Sunday, the union said.

“This is new territory. We are setting a new precedent here,” Ian Evershed, a mechanic and union representative involved in the talks, said in a telephone interview on Sunday.

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The union’s goal remains a negotiated deal rather than arbitration – a path it has rejected from the start.

“This process could take months,” he said, stressing that a strike puts pressure on the employer. This stance contradicts WestJet’s statement that the industrial action was “pure retaliation” since an agreement would be reached through arbitration anyway.

“That was our only step,” Evershed said, adding that a negotiated deal might still be reached.

In a statement to the court last week, WestJet’s lawyers said the union had sought “an unreasonable and extortionate result” and had deliberately scheduled the strike date at the height of the summer travel season.

The union says its wage demands would cost WestJet less than $8 million on top of what the company offered for the first year of the collective agreement – the first contract between the two sides. It has acknowledged that the gains would exceed compensation for industry peers across Canada and be more in line with U.S. counterparts.

WestJet said it offered a 12.5 percent pay increase in the first year of the contract and a cumulative 23 percent pay increase for the remainder of the five-and-a-half-year term.

— With files from Dirk Meissner in Victoria

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