A Dublin woman says she will never fly with Aer Lingus again after her nightmare experience.
Vanessa was due to visit her son in London and eagerly turned up to Dublin Airport four hours early. However, long queues, rowdy passengers, and a surprise cancellation meant that the family never got up into the sky.
It took her half an hour to get to check-in and another 90 mins to get through security. Boarding on the busy flight was delayed due to some anti-social behaviour.
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Eventually, staff announced that the flight was cancelled when people were already on the plane ready to take off. They explained that some of the crew had worked the maximum amount of hours they legally can under aviation laws.
Vanessa's bag was then lost for an hour before the family decided to call it a day. She told Dublin Live that she has still not been able to get through to Aer Lingus and would be worried about travelling over in the future having lost so much time and money.
Vanessa said: "I was going to London for three nights to visit my son who lives there. It was a birthday present for me that he had booked three nights in the Cotswolds.
"We were heading out on Sunday to travel to the Cotswolds on the Monday morning. I got to the airport four hours before my flight was due to go out. I thought that was going to give me a lot of time.
"It took about a half an hour to get through the baggage drop. It took 90 minutes to get through security.
"When we landed up to security it said 50 minutes from this point and that was halfway. There was one person accepting the boarding passes.
"There were people physically crying trying to get through the crowds that were rushing to board their flights. I let numerous people ahead of me.
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"One girl had no English and she just kept showing everyone her boarding pass while crying uncontrollably. I knew I had left in time.
"It was 6:20pm when we got through security. I had a cup of tea, never even went to the duty free. My daughter and I went straight to the boarding gate.
"We were boarding at 7pm. There were a couple of rowdy passengers who were boarding too.
"They started boarding and then they paused the boarding saying it was something to do with in-service.
"They called the airport police for the passengers that were causing trouble. They got quiet when they came and were interviewed. The police agreed to let them on the flight.
"Some of the passengers weren't happy. When we got on the flight we sat down and the rowdy passengers were separated.
"Then they announced that we had lost our slot for take off and that we would probably have a 40 minute wait but they would keep us updated. The next announcement was that it was a 50 minute journey and explained the route as normal but they were still waiting on an update from Gatwick Airport now.
"Because we had missed our slot Gatwick were now doing work on the runway and they didn't know when they could accept us. These things happen.
"Then we got an announcement to say that she was terribly sorry but some of the crew had gone over their working hours and the flight was now cancelled.
"We were asked to be patient with staff when we were getting off the flight and to go to carousel 1 for our luggage and check in desk 1 to chat with Aer Lingus staff to arrange overnight accommodation and change of flight."
Vanessa found all the moving around incredibly difficult because she is getting over an injury. She also was not able to use the alternative flights.
The devastated mum said: "I'm just getting over a broken ankle in all of those queues. My leg was getting bigger by the minute. When we got off I told my daughter to go the luggage carousel and I walked as quickly as I could to the queue for an alternative flight.
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"The bags didn't come out in carousel one. They started to come out in carousel three. Then they came out in carousel six, back and forth.
"Then my bag was lost. She eventually found it, over an hour later. Meanwhile, I'm in the queue with maybe 70 or 80 people in front of me.
"There was one girl in normal clothes behind the check-in desk. She was dealing with all of these people. Then another girl came in a green Aer Lingus uniform and they started taking names.
"Word got out through the queue that there were no change of flights here and the queue was only for hotels. I asked people to hold my space in the queue and I went up and asked the woman behind the desk if they were organising flights and she said that was to do Aer Lingus and that the other girl was only taking names for hotels if we can find any available rooms.
"At that moment they were booked out. I felt there was no point in me staying there then because I needed to be on a flight in the morning. I got an email from Aer Lingus that said I had been re-routed to Manchester at 6:30am the following morning and then from Manchester to London the next morning.
"So it was taking from Sunday to Tuesday to get me to London. Obviously, that wasn't going to work as I was coming home on the Wednesday.
"I spent 45 minutes on the phone trying to get through to Aer Lingus. To this day I have still not managed to get through to them and it now looks like I'm a no-show for all those flights.
"I filled out a refund form but I've gotten nothing back from them. I got a message that there was a two hour delay on my return flight but sure I hadn't even checked in because I'm not in London.
"When I was in the queue I was trying to rebook a flight from Belfast, from Cork, from anywhere. It was €400 with Aer Lingus for the next morning. I don't have €400. It was €300 with Ryanair."
Vanessa has an upcoming trip in August, but is worried that the same thing could happen again. She said: "We always felt that the flight was never going to take off. I just had a feeling.
"They left the door of the plane open for quite a while. A lot of people gave out to the flight getting off the plane, saying that they knew that this was going to happen.
"Things weren't handled properly at the boarding gate. There was a very bad atmosphere on the flight before we were due to take off.
"I went prepared early because I was so keen to get there and see my son. I am more disgruntled now because I've had no contact with them. I heard one woman saying she was after being put on the 6:30am flight for Gatwick the next morning and was being put up in a hotel that night. You'd like to know how they worked that out? How did she get it and I didn't get it?
"I'm due to go out later on in August and I had a chat with my daughter to ask if it's even worth it.
"We had to get a taxi home. Getting out of the car and look at the front door eight hours later was quite surreal. We were wondering if it was a dream or a nightmare.
"It's over a year since I last saw my son. He paid £350 for the hotel rooms that was non-refundable so he also lost out."
"Aer Lingus will not be my first choice anymore. All the Ryanair flights took off."
Dublin Live have contacted Aer Lingus for comment.
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