Air Canada, which has 130,000 daily passengers and flies directly to 180 cities worldwide, said all flights would be cancelled until Sunday afternoon.

The airline had stopped operations of all flights after some 10,000 cabin crew began industrial action fueled by a wage dispute, since Saturday midnight.

Air Canada: Photo: Official Facebook

Hours later, Canada's labor policy minister, Patty Hajdu, moved to invoke a legal provision that would halt the strike and force both sides into binding arbitration.

"This is not a decision that I have taken lightly. The potential for immediate negative impact on Canadians and our economy is simply too great," Hajdu told journalists, as reported by AFP.

However, she said it might take 5 to 10 days for Air Canada to resume regular services after the disruption.

In a statement later, Air Canada said that all flights remained grounded pending a decision by the Canada Industrial Relations Board on the government's arbitration order.

Meanwhile, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), which is representing the workers, said its members would remain on strike until the government formally issues an order that they return to work.

"Please remember there is only a referral, we are still in a legal position to strike and will continue to do so, we must show the company we are in control of this," the union's Air Canada branch wrote on Facebook.

In a separate statement, CUPE slammed the Canadian government's intervention as "rewarding Air Canada's refusal to negotiate fairly by giving them exactly what they wanted."

"This sets a terrible precedent," it added.

The union said that Maryse Tremblay, the chair of the Canada Industrial Relations Board, previously worked as legal counsel for Air Canada.

Tremblay's ruling on whether to end the strike was "an almost unthinkable display of conflict-of-interest," the union said on Facebook.

In addition to wage increases, the union says it wants to address uncompensated ground work, including during the boarding process.