Aer Lingus has issued an update after the Irish airline was forced to cancel all flights to the UK and Europe from Dublin after 2pm because of a major technical failure. The company blamed an 'incident with a network provider' that affected its systems for check-in and boarding, as well as impacting its website.
In an update at 6.45pm today (Saturday, September 10), Aer Lingus said: "Aer Lingus sincerely apologises to customers for the severe disruption caused today by the unavailability of key systems for check-in, boarding and our website. This system outage was caused by a break in connectivity in services from a UK network provider.
"The break in connectivity has now been restored and we are taking steps to bring all of our systems back online. Aer Lingus had to cancel 51 flights today, mainly to and from Dublin / European & UK destinations.
"Aer Lingus is operating all of its transatlantic services from Dublin, albeit with delays and reduced passenger numbers in some instances due to security restrictions applying as a result of the systems outage. Our transatlantic services from Shannon operated as normal today.
"Aer Lingus Regional (operated by Emerald Airlines) are also planning to operate remaining services today, albeit with delays. Any customer impacted by today’s disruptions will be able apply for a refund or change their travel plans, free of charge through Aerlingus.com, our call centres and our social media channels.
"As systems have now been restored we are contacting customers directly in order to re-accommodate them as efficiently as possible. We have made additional customer service agents available to deal with high call volumes – please bear with us as we try to service all customer queries.
"We will also share information regarding customers’ rights and the airlines’ obligations under Regulation (EC) 261/2004. Aer Lingus advises customers that its operations for tomorrow are planned to operate as normal. Customers are advised to come to the airports at the normal time for their scheduled flight."
An initial statement said: “Due to a major incident with a network provider, our cloud-based systems enabling check-in, boarding and our website are currently unavailable. A UK network provider servicing the cloud-based system has experienced a major break in connectivity impacting both primary and secondary connectivity.
“At this time the provider has not been able to give Aer Lingus an estimate of the time when the break in connectivity will be restored. Unfortunately, this is causing severe disruption to Aer Lingus services today.
“Consequently, all flights originally scheduled to depart from Dublin Airport for European and United Kingdom destinations from 2pm onwards today have had to be cancelled.”
The airline warned customers not to travel to Dublin Airport. It said flights set to depart before 2pm may still take off, but “as we are relying on manual process for these flights, there remains a risk of cancellation”.
The operator later added that flights scheduled to depart to Dublin Airport from Europe from 2pm onwards today have also had to be cancelled, with the exception of flights from Portugal and Spain, which it said it planned to operate, albeit with delays. It said flights originally scheduled to depart to Dublin from the United Kingdom from 2pm onwards were cancelled and flights to and from the Aer Lingus bases in Cork, Shannon and Belfast are planned to operate, albeit with delays and risk of short-notice cancellations.
It added that Aer Lingus regional flights (operated by Emerald Airlines) were currently planned to operate today, albeit with delays and risk of short-notice cancellations. The airline said it was unable to communicate directly with customers.
The airline said: “We sincerely apologise to all customers impacted by today’s disruption and cancellations. Any customer impacted by today’s disruptions will be able to change their travel plans, free of charge either through our call centre or social media channels.
“We will advise customers when IT systems are restored and this change option is fully available to our customers. As soon as systems are restored our teams will work to re-accommodate those impacted as efficiently as possible, and share information regarding customers’ rights and the airlines’ obligations.
“We are working intensively with our system partners and their network partners to resolve the connection issues as soon as possible.”
In a tweet, Dublin Airport said impacted passengers should contact the airline directly about next steps. The airport also said that no other airlines are affected.
Lisa Webb from Which? said: “Aer Lingus’ sudden cancellations of flights to and from the UK and Europe will cause thousands of passengers distress and anxiety when it comes to their travel plans. In events such as these, airlines should be offering the option of a refund or to reroute passengers on any reasonable route as quickly as possible, using other airlines where necessary.
“Aer Lingus must also give clear information to affected customers about their entitlement to compensation.”
