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The recent labor dispute between Air Canada and its flight attendants pulled back the curtain on one of the airline industry's longest-standing injustices: flight attendants are , a practice that has persisted for more than 60 years across the global aviation industry.

On Aug. 14, Air Canada ahead of a potential strike to allow an "orderly shutdown." The strike started on Aug. 16, but less than 12 hours into it, the federal government between the airline and its union.

The union to return to work—an order that was never ratified by the court—until a tentative agreement was reached in the early hours of Aug. 19.

Much was at stake during the conflict, and both unions and carriers around the world likely followed it closely. Passenger traffic had returned to pre-pandemic levels, but . Stable fuel prices provided some financial relief, but economic and geopolitical uncertainties made carriers cautious about increasing labor costs.

The union, of course, had a very different perspective. For them, the dispute was an attempt to break new grounds and see compensation for ground duties become the new norm across the industry.

Why has such unfairness endured?

The persistence of unpaid ground time in the aviation industry can be explained through institutional isomorphism theory, a concept introduced by sociologists .

While organizational theorists had traditionally focused on the , DiMaggio and Powell argued that, over time, organizations in the same field tend to look and behave alike.

Institutional isomorphism helps explain why managers in the aviation industry often conform to established practices, even when change might make business sense. While we tend to think pursued by managers, a key driver of their behavior is actually legitimacy.

For example, while offering higher salaries to attract employees to an industry still suffering from a labor shortage might be a rational business decision, the reluctance to act differently from companies in the same sector can outweigh that logic.

The forces sustaining unpaid ground time

DiMaggio and Powell defined three types of institutional isomorphism: coercive, mimetic and normative. First, coercive isomorphism refers to the pressures organizations face from formal and informal constraints in an industry. Such constraints are particularly acute in air transportation, which is highly regulated in order to guarantee safety to passengers.

Within this regulatory framework, airtime—the period of time when an aircraft is in the air between takeoff and landing—has become a standard industry measure. and industry bodies such as the , and have all reinforced its use by embedding it in the safety standards, operational practices and regulatory frameworks that airlines and national regulators must follow.

The concept of airtime also endured due to mimetic isomorphism, which occurs when organizations imitate the practices of others. In the case of aviation, reproducing historical practices like pay structures has allowed airlines to cope with the uncertainty of a business that has become highly cyclical ever since .

The last, and one of the most interesting processes pushing organizations to look alike, is normative isomorphism. This refers to the influence of educational institutions and professional networks on organizational behavior.

It stems from the , according DiMaggio and Powell. Nurses, doctors, engineers, accountants, pilots and flight attendants all identify with their professions at least as much as they identify with the company they work for, if not more.

Air transport was a in its early days, which might have contributed to the belief that "real work" meant work in the air. In this sense, flight attendants themselves may have unintentionally helped reinforce this norm.

Could the Air Canada dispute spark a shift?

The Air Canada dispute may mark a turning point for labor standards in the airline industry.

In the post-pandemic period, when delays have been frequent due to among mechanics, air traffic controllers and pilots, the unfairness of not paying flight attendants for work performed on the ground has become more visible.

A union victory on this front has the potential to create a snowball effect, with unpaid ground time becoming an illegitimate practice in the industry.

Whether the high-profile Air Canada labor dispute will cause a paradigm shift that causes ground pay to become the new norm in the airline industry remains to be seen. What does seem likely, however, is that after standing by the flight attendants despite the inconvenience and disruptions caused by the strike, the traveling public may view such a profound institutional change in a positive light.