International travel is undoubtedly a complex business which sees millions of people and their bags boarding planes every single day.
There are all manner of variables – from weather and technology to human failings and industrial action – that go right or wrong at any given moment and when they go wrong they can quickly derail the best-laid plans of passengers and the airlines who fly them here, there and everywhere.
But while many of the variables are beyond the control of the airlines, how they handle situations as they arise are very much within their control, and we have three examples of Aer Lingus letting their customers down badly.
Alison’s rerouted luggage
A reader called Alison was delighted when she received a golfing trip on the Algarve as a Christmas present and spent months looking forward to her trip away only for it to be “ruined” as a result of the “gross mishandling of my luggage and a cascade of service failures”.
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Last month Alison arrived in Faro after the fairly short flight from Cork only to find out that her luggage had not taken the journey with her. “I was assured by Aer Lingus representatives in Faro that the bag would be delivered to my temporary address in Portugal within 48 hours. This promise was not fulfilled,” she writes.
She says that in the days that followed, she received “conflicting and inconsistent information from various Aer Lingus representatives”.
After much toing and froing she was told by the baggage services team operating out of Cork Airport that her bag had been incorrectly routed to Lanzarote.
That was bad but it was about to get a whole lot worse.
Alison was assured that her bag would travel back from the Spanish island to Dublin and then back across the water to Portugal, the plan being she would be reunited with her luggage on April 9th or 10th – three or four days after she arrived in Faro.
She was – as you might imagine – less than impressed on April 9th to receive a call from a courier who was trying in vain to deliver her bags to her home in Dublin.
“This came as a complete shock as I had been repeatedly assured the delivery would take place in Portugal,” she says. She was assured at that point that a mistake had been made and that her bag would be delivered to Portugal but that did not happen.
She was subsequently told that her bag could be collected in Dublin even though she had made it “explicitly clear I was not flying through Dublin, and this was not logistically viable. Eventually, I was informed the bag would be delivered to my home or made available for collection at Cork Airport.”
Alison then found out that the case – if that is not the wrong word to use – was closed by some Aer Lingus staff, a fact that came as a surprise to other Aer Lingus staff, and she says this “further highlights the lack of internal communication and control” at the airline.
She says that as the problem was ongoing she got a message from baggage handling staff in Cork that said: “We are unfortunately still waiting for a response from Dublin as to why they closed your file and had the bag delivered to your home address and not forwarded to Faro as per request. We are awaiting an explanation from Dublin as to why this happened. We have contacted Dublin again this morning in relation to your luggage delivery details and are awaiting a response.”
She says that the statement “confirms not only the operational failure in forwarding the bag but also reveals a troubling lack of accountability between internal departments. That my file was closed prematurely and the bag incorrectly sent to Ireland directly contradicts what had been communicated to me repeatedly and in writing.”
She also expressed “deep concern over the fact that although my bag was tagged in Cork for Faro, upon eventually receiving my case I discovered it had a different tag showing another passenger’s details and destination. This is not just a service failure – it is a security breach. How could my baggage have been retagged without my knowledge?”
She says this “lack of traceability and control over passenger belongings is unacceptable and raises serious concerns regarding safety and regulatory compliance”.
“Throughout this ordeal, I was left without essential personal items for the duration of my trip. My holiday was irreparably impacted, not only by the physical absence of my belongings but by the constant uncertainty, stress and need to manage a situation that should never have escalated in the first place. As a paying customer, I expected and deserved better.”
She says she believes she is entitled to compensation but also wants the airline “to address the apparent breakdown in internal communication and handling procedures, particularly with regard to security practices and customer service follow-through”.
Leonie’s lost bag
If anything, the story of another reader – called Leonie – had was worse.
She is a final-year student in Ireland who is leaving to work abroad this month and had her luggage – with many of her “main possessions” – lost by Aer Lingus when she was returning from a ski trip in January.
“I waited in line for an hour at the lost bag counter at Dublin Airport and was told to go home and fill in details online.”
She did as she was told and hoped the bag would make its way back to her before long. “I understand that these things happen,” she says.
Fast forward nearly four months and there was no sign of the bag.
“I am distraught at this stage over the lack of action by Aer Lingus as I receive ongoing generic emails that I cannot respond to saying to rest assured that the team are actively reviewing [the case] and will be in touch with an update as soon as this has been completed.”
The generic emails also apologise for “any inconvenience this delay has caused” and assure her the airline “appreciates my understanding”.
She says it is hard to believe the sentiment, “and I do not understand at all how this is taking so long to resolve. I have not been compensated per the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air, 1999 (Montreal Convention) to which Aer Lingus should have regard,” she says.
Under those rules, any missing luggage is officially considered lost after 21 days and airlines are liable to pay up to €1,600 in compensation. Passengers can also claim for the cost of replacing essential items while they wait for their bags to be found. Airlines will insist on receipts or invoices both for what is lost and what was bought to replace them.
Leonie says that “phoning customer service or using [the airline’s] WhatsApp to talk to an agent is soul-destroying.”
She cites an example of just one such a contact.
In February “after many engagements with a bot going nowhere, I waited over eight hours to be connected to a person, at which stage I was sound asleep and, presumably as I didn’t respond, I was sent back to the bot again. I did, however, receive a text asking how Aer Lingus did in this transaction and asking me to complete a survey. This is a typical experience.”
She says that after “several attempts on different days, I eventually spoke to a human in customer services on March 12th by ringing from my phone, my mother’s phone and a landline, where one phone was answered after about an hour. I was told that Aer Lingus are really busy, and they hadn’t even processed my paperwork over two months after the bag was lost.”
She got fresh correspondence last month to say there was still no news about the case of the missing case.
“My entire large bag and contents valued at around €3,100 are gone and my skiing gear, clothes, shoes, medication and a Dyson Airwrap as well as an expensive bag belonging to my father.”
She says she is “really disappointed about Aer Lingus and how they treat their customers when things go wrong, as in this pretty rotten situation”.
From lost bags to lost flights.
Eamonn’s cancelled flight
On Saturday, June 15th last year a reader called Eamonn and his wife, Colette, checked in through the Aer Lingus desk at Alicante airport and went through security hoping to catch a flight back to Dublin that was due to take off at 11.55pm.
“The flight was initially delayed by three quarters of an hour before being cancelled altogether,” Eamonn says.
It took the guts of an hour for the couple and around 200 other similarly impacted passengers to make their way back through passport control and reclaim their luggage. What they found at the other end of this journey was nothing.
“We were left with no directions from Iberia, the ground handler for Aer Lingus, about the supply of overnight accommodation as the flight was to be delayed to 3pm the following day,” he continues.
He says there were no Aer Lingus staff to be seen either.
“We received a letter explaining the reasons for the cancellation on check-in at 6pm the following day. The reason given for the delay was the incoming flight from Dublin to Alicante was diverted to Valencia due to inclement weather over Alicante even though a number of flights both landed and took off from Alicante at this time including a Ryanair flight,” Eamonn continues.
When the couple eventually boarded their homeward-bound flight almost 24 hours later than intended, the captain “explained that on landing in Valencia only one refuelling truck was available as opposed to the normal five.”
The captain went on to say that this “led to a delay in which he had to disembark all Alicante-bound passengers in Valencia.
Because the crew was running out of flight hours that pushed back the departure time to Dublin from Alicante to 3pm on the Sunday.”
Eamonn says that the captain “also explained that two hotels that were booked to accommodate the crew overnight had both cancelled at the last minute and they had only found a third at 4am on Sunday morning. Because of this second delay the take-off time was pushed out again to 6pm to allow for legal crew rest time.”
Eamonn believes he is entitled to compensation not because of the weather – which is a circumstance beyond the airline’s control – but because of the insufficient number of refuelling trucks in Valencia and the cancellation of the Aer Lingus crew’s booked hotels.
He says the flight was delayed by 18 hours and “it cannot be rightly claimed that the flight was delayed due to weather”.
And finally, we have a story that involves Aer Lingus – although perhaps not directly.
Anne contacted us from New York last week in a bit of a state. She was due to fly to Dublin from Newark and was troubled by news reports about radar outages and air traffic control issues at the airport.
The issue forced Aer Lingus, along with other airlines, to cancel flights to and from Newark in the days running up to Anne’s flight and, having spent “several fruitless hours trying to reach someone – anyone – at Aer Lingus to rebook my flight to travel out of JFK”, she booked a new flight herself at a cost of about €500.
“I’m still not sure how to go about securing a refund for the Newark-Dublin leg of the original flight. I cannot be the only person in this situation, and the safety concerns are obviously real.”
While we understand her concerns and her frustration at not being able to make contact with the airline to find out what was going on, she perhaps acted too hastily.
The flight did depart Newark as planned on the day in question and that means the airline has no obligation to give her a refund.
The airline responds
In response to Alison’s story, the airline said it “regrets that this customer’s bag became untagged in transit, resulting in the bag being accidentally retagged with an incorrect baggage tag. This resulted in the baggage being misdirected to Lanzarote rather than Faro. After a thorough review, we have determined that this was an isolated operational error and are satisfied that the customer’s personal information was not compromised in any way.”
The airline said that it had “reached out to the customer to offer our sincere apologies. In addition, we have fully reimbursed the expenses incurred due to the baggage not arriving at its intended destination and we have extended a gesture of goodwill.”
When it came to Leonie, Aer Lingus said it “sincerely regrets that this customer’s baggage was lost during their recent travels. In accordance with the Montreal Convention, the customer is entitled to compensation. Our customer care team has reached out to this customer to assist them with the process and to apologise that their experience fell short of our standards.”
The news wasn’t good for Eamonn.
“Aer Lingus has carefully reviewed this case and confirms that the customer’s flight was delayed due to adverse weather conditions. The diversion of the Dublin-Alicante flight to Valencia due to poor weather was beyond the airline’s control, and as a result, the unavailability of refuelling trucks at the diversion airport was an issue the airline could not reasonably have foreseen or mitigated. Likewise, the cancellation of the crew’s hotel – another direct consequence of the initial weather-related delay – was an unavoidable issue that Aer Lingus could not have reasonably foreseen or prevented. While we understand that delays are frustrating, the safety of our customers and our crew is our priority at all times.”
