MONTREAL – Regional airline Jazz Air is facing a strike vote by its pilots who could be off the job as early as mid-June, potentially disrupting travellers’ summer vacation plans.

Negotiations are expected to go right down to the wire, Brian Shury of the Air Line Pilots Association said Friday.

“We’re hoping for the best and planning for the worst,” said Shury, who is chairman of the union’s master executive council for Jazz pilots.

No strike deadline has been set, however the mandatory cooling-off period will expire at midnight on June 12.

“We fully anticipate that there will negotiations with the company after that time period and right up to the potential deadline,” Shury said from Toronto.

Halifax-based Jazz Air Income Fund said it has reached deals with some of its unions, but it’s still negotiating with several others, including the pilots.

“Our dispatchers ratified their new collective agreement and the process continues with our pilots, flight attendants and crew schedulers,” Jazz CEO Joseph Randell told a conference call with analysts on Friday.

Shury predicted the pilots’ vote will be highly in favour of a strike once the results are counted on May 27, adding that will put pressure on Jazz to bargain “meaningfully.”

“The strike vote is a normal part of the bargaining process and we feel it’s going to bring the proper amount of pressure on all of the parties to find a tentative agreement before a work disruption takes place,” he said.

Analyst Michael Mills said the strike threat can’t be dismissed.

“I think it has to be taken seriously,” said Mills of Halifax-based Beacon Securities.

“These guys have been without a contract since the end of June last year, and certainly the negotiations with both the pilots and flight attendants have taken much longer than I was expecting and longer than most people were expecting.”

Mills noted that Jazz has pointed it out during the conference call that it has put money aside for its labour agreements.

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