Aer Lingus received 6,500 applications for compensation from customers who had been stranded due to the airline’s I.T outage in September.
Aer Lingus told the Oireachtas Transport Committee today that they were still processing refunds for customers who were forced to reschedule flights across Europe. There remains 700 passengers who have yet to receive financial compensation due to the cancellations.
There were approximately 30,000 customers affected by the I.T outage on September 10, which occurred when a fibre optic cable in the UK was damaged during construction. This caused colossal online errors, leaving many customers unable to check in or access flight information for a 10 hour period.
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CEO of Aer Lingus Lynne Embleton told the Committee: “This incident was truly exceptional. We’ve had very few technical issues over the last 5 years, and nothing like what we experienced on September 10. We had no access to customer systems for 10 hours, meaning we had very limited availability to communicate with our customers.”
TD Michael Lowry questioned whether the Irish based airline should be so reliant on UK technology in light of the massive outage. He was present at Dublin Airport on the day of the cancellations and claimed the crowds gathered due to the disruption was “an incredible sight.”
Lowry said: “People were angry, frustrated and even hungry because they could not get into the terminal. The communication was zero; customers got the disturbing news through national media that their flights had been cancelled. It was nothing short of a PR disaster for Aer Lingus and has caused reputational damage for the airline both here and abroad.”
The CEO apologised to customers for the distress caused on the day. The airline suffered from subsequent but unrelated technical difficulties the following week as many customers struggled to use the check in facility.
Ironically, today’s proceedings were slightly delayed as the Oireachtas suffered a technical glitch while attempting to record the meeting.
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