Aveos Closes, Fires Thousands of Workers

Aveos fires workers | BCBusiness
Aveos, the company that performs maintenance on most of Air Canada’s planes, shuttered three of its centres and fired around 2,600 aircraft maintenance workers.

The maintenance company for Air Canada suddenly shuttered three of its maintenance centres this week, leaving thousands of workers in the lurch.

More than 2,600 workers learned they didn’t have jobs to go back to this week when Aveos Fleet Performance Inc. shuttered its operations without warning.
 
On Sunday the company, which maintains most of the aircraft for Air Canada, gave notice to employees at its plants in Montreal, Winnipeg and here in Vancouver, and simultaneously shut its doors.
 
A few hundred laid-off Aveos workers in Montreal even blocked the street leading to the company’s headquarters Tuesday in protest. And they have every right to be angry.
 
In addition to leaving thousands of employees without a steady paycheque, Aveos’ closure is creating a number of issues for Air Canada during the busy March Break travel season. The country’s top airline is implementing its contingency maintenance plan, which has planes hitting Quebec for scheduled repairs.
 
The move has left Air Canada scrambling to prevent delays and disruptions to customers. The airline responded to the closure saying if Aveos didn’t work on some of Air Canada’s planes, up to 3,000 passengers could be left stranded daily.
 
On Monday, Aveos gained bankruptcy status and formally ceased Canadian operations. Air Canada constituted 90 per cent of its business, and Aveos has blamed the airline for its fiscal troubles in recent statements.