Air Canada said on Thursday it expects to cancel several dozen flights by day’s end and around 500 flights by the end of Friday affecting 100,000 passengers, ahead of a planned Saturday strike by its unionized flight attendants.

Mark Nasr, chief operations officer at Air Canada, said the complexity of the carrier’s network, which operates over 250 aircraft on flights to over 65 countries, requires it to start winding down service now. Restarting operations would take a week to complete.

“It’s simply not the kind of system that we can start or stop at the push of a button,” Nasr told reporters in Toronto. 5

FlightAware data shows Air Canada has, thus far, canceled nine flights as of Thursday midday.

A strike would displace passengers, hit the country’s tourism sector during the hei

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