Furious Aer Lingus passengers lashed out after they were told their flights would go ahead – only for them to be cancelled when they got through security.
Similar horror stories were revealed yesterday following weekend chaos at Dublin Airport while the airline tried to return to uninterrupted services. A systems outage on Saturday caused the cancellation of 52 Aer Lingus flights in and out of the capital for destinations in Europe and the UK.
The carrier pledged yesterday to return to normal – but the weekend disruption continues for thousands of passengers. Stranded travellers and disappointed holidaymakers unleashed their frustrations online and on RTE Radio 1’s Liveline show.
Read more: How Aer Lingus passengers who had their flights cancelled at Dublin Airport can claim compensation
Emmet Byrne was flying to Miami on Saturday to join a €5,000 honeymoon cruise and now fears he will lose that money. He arrived at Dublin Airport at 6.45am and was told at 4.30pm that the flight was cancelled.
Emmet said: “We were initially told there was a slight IT glitch. That was the last thing we heard until they said, ‘Look, you have to go home now, your flight’s cancelled’. We’ve missed the cruise and we don’t know if we’re going to get our money back. It cost €5,000. We’re heartbroken.”
Michelle Gavin, whose flight from Corfu to Dublin was cancelled but got home with another airline via Germany, said: “When we arrived into Dublin Airport, the chaos was unbelievable.” Passengers waited half an hour for steps to disembark, plus another two-and-a-half hours for luggage.
Some people had to leave for connecting flights despite announcements telling people not to leave without their bags. Michelle said: “Talk about Covid, there were people everywhere and luggage was all over the place.”
An Aer Lingus spokesman said: “We plan to operate as scheduled today and going forward. Aer Lingus sincerely apologises to customers for the severe disruption caused on Saturday by the unavailability of our 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.”
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