WestJet cancelled 645 flights by Sunday night as its cabin-crew strike hit the August long weekend. The airline's own cancellation board, updated at 10:40 p.m. Mountain Time on August 2, is the count. [1]

The take-down started Friday. Eighty flights came off Friday evening. Saturday added waves of 32, 86, 78, and 33. Sunday added 291 by 3 a.m. and 45 more by night. The running total is 645, not the 300-range figure that circulated from earlier snapshots. [1]

About 4,400 CUPE attendants walked out after talks on unpaid ground work failed. WestJet said it could not operate scheduled Boeing 737 or 787 flying. Estimates put affected passengers near 250,000. WestJet Encore Q400s, under a separate contract, kept flying. [2]

A tentative deal arrived Monday morning. Residual cancellations continued while crews and aircraft were put back in place. [2]

The strike's impact on summer travel is a network fact, not a slogan. Six hundred-plus empty departure slots on a holiday weekend is the cost of a credit-hour system that did not pay for the work on the ground.

WestJet said it took the network down to keep aircraft and guests from being stranded offshore. The precaution produced the cancellation total. The walkout produced the reason.

-- THEO KAPLAN, San Francisco