Frustrated Aer Lingus passengers say the airline left their bags in Dublin Airport for almost two weeks after delays that hit a flight from Dubrovnik this month.
Alison Haughton and Christina Marsh flew from Dubrovnik to Boston via Dublin with Aer Lingus on July 1st. Their Dubrovnik flight was delayed 50 minutes, which was not Aer Lingus’s fault, according to Ms Haughton.
However, they had to wait 15 minutes to disembark in Dublin, even though they had to make a connection to Boston. Staff assured them and their fellow passengers that their bags would transfer to the US leg of their journeys.
When they arrived in Boston, they and other passengers waited for one hour and 37 minutes for their bags, which did not appear.
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Ms Haughton says that at this point they discovered an Aer Lingus worker who had known all along that the bags were not on the flight. “Yet he stood there and did not notify passengers,” she adds.
Aer Lingus then told them that their baggage would be on the following day’s flight from Dublin, but by July 3rd the airline had conceded that it did not know the bags’ location.
At this point, Ms Haughton says Aer Lingus workers advised her and Ms Marsh to file insurance claims as they “probably would not get the bags back”.
Ms Haughton drove to Logan Airport, Boston, in the days following her flight, as she could get no answer to calls to Aer Lingus customer care.
When she arrived at the airport, there were several other passengers from her flight with the same problem.
“Those passengers originated from various other EU countries and connected via Dublin to Boston,” she adds.
Last Sunday, July 10th, following three trips to Logan, she discovered that the bags were sitting in Dublin Airport.
She confirmed this on Monday and says that the airline’s failure to forward the bags “perplexed” its staff in Boston.
Aer Lingus apologised to the customer for the delay in forwarding the bags. “Our team on the ground at Dublin Airport has located their luggage and this will be returned to Boston on EI 133, tomorrow, Wednesday July 13th,” noted a statement.
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The airline maintains that bag transfers are hardest hit by labour shortages among ground-handling companies, which do this work under contract to airlines.
Aer Lingus says that it has hired extra staff for call centres, as it is aware of long wait times. The airline also points out that the problems across airports and among third-party suppliers, including ground handlers, are outside its control.
“We apologise to our customers whose bags have been delayed,” the company says. “Our team on the ground is continuing to work closely with all the relevant handling agents to retrieve delayed or misdirected baggage as quickly and efficiently as possible.”
Ms Haughton argues that Aer Lingus management is responsible for its problems, while as a consequence, its frontline staff have to deal with passengers’ anger.
Separately, Aer Lingus chief executive Lynne Embleton has been criticised at the Oireachtas transport committee for refusing to attend a hearing to discuss problems with flight cancellations and delays.
At the start of the committee’s Wednesday meeting, chairman Kieran O’Donnell said Ms Embleton had been invited to attend “but has refused to do so”. He said the committee wanted to discuss very serious issues affecting the public and the refusal was “unacceptable”. He said the invitation would be reissued and he expected Ms Embleton to attend on Wednesday next.
Mr O’Donnell said the committee was anxious to begin a body of work on a review of the national aviation strategy and the committee was “here to assist” in solving problems in the aviation industry.
An Aer Lingus spokeswoman told The Irish Times that representatives were unable to attend due to “unavoidable existing commitments”.
“Aer Lingus offered to attend a committee meeting at a later date and to answer in writing any specific questions that the committee had in advance of that meeting,” she added.
