By David Goldman, Chris Isidore, CNN

(CNN) — Air Canada and a union representing the airline’s flight attendants have come to a tentative agreement, ending a days-long strike that canceled thousands of flights and stranded hundreds of thousands of passengers.

“Flight attendants at Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge have reached a tentative agreement, achieving transformational change for our industry after a historic fight to affirm our Charter rights,” said Hugh Pouliot, spokesman for the Canadian Union for Public Employees (CUPE), in a statement Tuesday. “Unpaid work is over. We have reclaimed our voice and our power.”

Union members will need to vote on the agreement to make it permanent. If they vote it down, the strike could resume. The two sides came back to the table Monday night for the first time since the strike began Saturday.

The strike had forced the cancellation of more than 700 flights a day by Air Canada and is Air Canada Rouge subsidiary, according to flight tracking site FlightAware. And many flights may not resume immediately. FlightAware shows more than 500 flights already cancelled for Tuesday, and more than 160 cancelled flights already for Wednesday.

Air Canada’s statement on the tentative labor deal said that “only customers with confirmed bookings whose flights are shown as operating should go to the airport.” The airline also warned Tuesday that it could take a week to 10 days to fully resume its schedule, because “aircraft and crew are out of position.” It began winding down its operations Thursday, two days before the strike was set to take place.

About half of Air Canada’s flights are domestic and the rest are international, with a large percentage of those going to and from the United States, according to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium.

“The suspension of our service is extremely difficult for our customers. We deeply regret and apologize for the impact on them of this labour disruption,” Air Canada said in a statement Tuesday. “Our priority now is to get them moving as quickly as possible.”

The strike took place in spite of an order Saturday, the first day of the strike, from the Canadian Jobs Minister, instructing Air Canada and its employees to resume operations and end the strike.

Members of the Air Canada component of CUPE voted 99.7% in favor of the strike last week and walked out around 1 a.m. ET Saturday. The workers were seeking wage increases and paid compensation for work when planes are grounded, and as they perform critical safety checks, attend to onboard medical and safety emergencies, and assist passengers with boarding and deplaning, according to the union.

But the main issue is wages, which the union said has fallen well behind industry standards and the cost of living. According to the union, since 2000, inflation has increased prices in Canada by 169% and average full-time wages across the nation have increased 210%. But entry-level Air Canada flight attendants’ wages have increased only 10% – just $3 per hour – in the past 25 years.

About 10,000 flight attendants went on strike.

This story has been updated with additional developments and context.

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