Holiday-goers and passengers are receiving disappointing news today amid a raft of Aer Lingus flight cancellations due to Covid-19 absences and ground handler strikes in two French airports.
Aer Lingus has cancelled a total of 31 flights over the entire weekend with 21 flights grounded on Friday. The airline says it is working to accommodate passengers on the next available operating services.
Many people scheduled to travel beyond this weekend are asking the airline if their services will run. While Aer Lingus has not confirmed cancellations beyond Saturday, further disruption is expected amid the ongoing strikes and Covid-19 case surge among staff.
Read More: Travel chaos LIVE: Dublin Airport hit by Aer Lingus cancellations
There are a number of ways passengers can check if their flight is still going ahead.
Firstly, the easiest way to check the flight is directly with the airline itself. In the case of Aer Lingus, you can use the 'My Trips' tool online to key in your flight information and get the up to date flight information at that time. You can use that tool here. This will update when flights are delayed or cancelled. Passengers will also be notified directly.
As these systems can sometimes take a while to update, some passengers have been contacting the Aer Lingus account on Twitter for customer support with some passengers being informed of cancelled flights before automated systems update.
Further to that, Dublin Airport runs a flight information dashboard online which displays delayed or cancelled flights in real-time as and when they receive information from individual airlines. This dashboard also displays the current security queuing times for both Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 at Dublin Airport.
If you are flying with Ryanair and want to check your flight information, you can similarly use their Travel Updates tool online. You can input your flight number or details to receive up to date information on its status. Other airlines operate similar tools and will also contact passengers when their is a change to their flight status.
In a statement to the Irish Mirror, Aer Lingus said they have been "forced to cancel" the flights "due to a spike in Covid cases" and "ground handling industrial action" at both Bordeaux and Lyon Airports.
A spokesperson said: "Due to a spike in Covid cases, Aer Lingus has been forced to cancel nine return flights and one direct flight today Friday, July 1, and three return flights tomorrow, Saturday, July 2.
"Additionally, ground handling industrial action at Bordeaux Airport and Lyon Airport has required the cancellation of one return flight to Bordeaux today, Friday, July 1 and two return flights to Lyon tomorrow, Saturday, July 2."
The airline was keen to stress that "just over 1% of Aer Lingus flights have been impacted by cancellations in June" but did add, "Aer Lingus wishes to apologise to those impacted and teams at the airline are working to re-accommodate impacted passengers on the next available services as efficiently as possible."
The spokesperson went on to say: "Aer Lingus anticipated the return of demand for travel once Covid restrictions were removed and built appropriate buffers into our plans in order to deal with a reasonable level of additional disruption. System pressures and ongoing issues at some airports and among third party suppliers have created considerable operational challenges which have been compounded by a significant spike in Covid cases in recent days."
READ NEXT :
