Aer Lingus Group
Reviews and Complaints

To Whom It May Concern,

On Wednesday, 7th December 2022, a group of one hundred students along with ten teachers departed Dublin Airport to Dusseldorf Airport for an immersive and cultural tour of the city of Cologne. The outward flight and transfers were seamless along with the itinerary of our trip which was organised by Saffron Travel, Blackrock, Co. Louth.

However, on Friday, 9th December, we arrived as a full group of one hundred and ten people to Dusseldorf Airport to check in for our return flight to Dublin – flight reference EI639.

At 18:55, approximately twenty students and one teacher had checked in and cleared security with seventy five other bags checked on to the flight. Also, en route through the security gate were a further thirty students. At 18:59, the check in attendant announced the cancellation of our flight home.

This left us in a particularly challenging quandary as we had to retrieve students from the boarding gate, clear students from security, gather remaining queuing students to one side and arrange for the return of aforesaid baggage. In addition to this, we had to arrange food and accommodation fro all one hundred and ten people.

Our saving grace on this occasion was the sacrifice of time and effort invested by Manlo, a ground handling operator from Global Aviation Handling. Together with our tour operator, they had to arrange our meal in McDonald’s in Dusseldorf Airport and fifty five rooms of accommodation in the nearby Maritime Hotel. Upon check in to this hotel, we were informed to vacate our rooms by 08:00 the following morning with the final group of students only being allocated a room at 23:00.

That night, at 00:00 local time, we received a text from our tour operator stating that our group would be split over the following three days on randomly available Aer Lingus flights to Dublin from range of airports.

Naturally, great anxiety, confusion and angst ensued and no support or communication was given by Aer Lingus until 05:00 the following morning.

Are Lingus determined how we returned home and exactly which students and teachers would be travelling on the following days. Logistically, our main concern was the adequate supervision of students by teachers on the myriad of coach transfers, hotel transfers and flights. At this juncture, Aer Lingus significantly ignored EU Regulations on Flight Cancellations 261/2004 and categorically contravened said regulations with only one group of five groups in total receiving meal and subsistence vouchers, in this case, those students transferred to Amsterdam Airport.

In particular, the group of students and teachers destined to travel from Düsseldorf to London to Dublin on Saturday, 10th December, were treated in an extremely hap-hazard fashion. In effect, thirty three people were abandoned at 21:00 on this date with absolutely no food vouchers or communication from Aer Lingus. They had to find accommodation at this late hour with no assistance from Aer Lingus support. Aer Lingus would also not communicate with our tour operator.

Meanwhile, a remaining fifty students with four teachers were dispersed to three separate hotels in or around Brussels, namely the areas of Averlee and Leuvan.

This was extremely fragmented and unsettling for students, teachers in loco parentis, management back home in Ireland and, importantly, worried parents.

As aforesaid, with no support, financial or otherwise from Aer Lingus, our school had to use its own limited resources to financially support this group to ensure they had adequate food, water and necessary provisions.

Our duty as teachers is to broaden students’ experience of the curriculum through immersive projects like cultural city tours. We feel passionate about this and regularly organise trips such as this one. We note your mission statement is “to become the leading value carrier……supported by a guest focused brand”. In this instance, your responsibility to us coupled with your duty to maintain EU regulations and embrace your mission statement was wholly lacking. You, as an airline, abdicated your responsibility.

We would like to acknowledge that each teacher checking students on to flights in all airports, namely Düsseldorf, Brussels and Amsterdam, over the weekend of 10th and 11th December, had to flight for seats as Aer Lingus had closed the online seat booking facility.

We had to fight for seats to ensure the safe return of our students. Airport staff in all locations were very supportive and understanding of our situation in direct contrast to Aer Lingus.

Henceforth, we would be sceptical of using the airline in future trips.

We would like acknowledgement of receipt of this letter within ten working days from the above date shown and ideally a response of explanation for Aer Lingus’s appalling shortcomings.

Respectfully,

Mrs. Jacinta Quinn

Aer Lingus forced me to book a flight (€300 with extra luggage) before letting me know of the price to get my pets in a flight to Rome. Several days after, and a few email exchanges, I got the outrageous price of €1300 that was unacceptable as anyone can imagine. After several attempts contacting support someone on the other side of the line told me there is no refund possible and that she wouldn't escalate the issue, dropping the line on my face.

Aer Lingus the worst airline ever Aer Lingus have overcharged me from an original fare. Overcharges on all changes even though the destination country was just in complete lockdown. An original ticket was purchased August 2020. Supposed to fly that Xmas. Did not Happen due to lockdown. Changed my flight 4-5 times. All due to The UK still being in lockdown. Was charged each and every time. I am writing this after waiting 40 min and 1 hour on a call with a rude European Agent. Who asked me why I made changes. I told him also due to bereavement. He started laughing. I was horrified. I was just racially assaulted by the same operator. from Bulgaria. I asked him his name he made reference to a Black American comedian. However, nothing was resolved. I will take this horrific experience further. I have flown for 51 years of my life. Aer Lingus are a total embarrassment

I had a 9:50am flight (EIO158) booked with Ryanair from Dublin to London Heathrow on the 28th of December 2020. In the days leading up to the flight a government travel ban was put in place due to the discovery of a new Covid strain. Due to this I of course couldn't fly so I waited for a refund email from aer Lingus as I had already heard from Ryanair about my flight to Ireland. On the day of the flight I still had not heard anything and was unsure of how to proceed so I cancelled the flight and submitted a refund request. The full cost of the flight was €110.99 but after a long wait aer lingus refunded me about £14 with no explanation. I've contacted them on several occasions and they just send back a load of spiel about how I agreed to the terms and conditions. They are not interested in helping me at all. Seemingly because the flight went I am not entitled to a refund even though it would have been illegal for me to get on the flight. It feels unfair that I'm losing money because of a government travel ban that I had no choice but to follow. Aer lingus didn't even offer me a travel voucher or credits and aren't willing to discuss or rectify my issue.

My Booking Reference: 2B28G6
MY Case Reference: 5091901
I canceled my flight within 24 hours of booking 10days ago and I have not any updated answer from you.
I want full refund.

Their rude staff and a devil-may-care attitude made me switch to different airlines.
Actually, I have been with them for several years and each year they become worse and worse and worse. Honestly, it can't be worse than they are now.
Next bad thing about them is their constant delays. Seriously, it's not funny. Why doesn't anyone from your management board care about this serious problem that caused a lot of troubles to passengers who pay for fast flights, not for delays? Hard not to switch to better conditions, ya know.

I have booked a flight for my husband to Izmir in the sale for June 2015.And when I checked the price for the checked bag I found I was charged €35 checked bag and another plus fee €41 .i rang customer care and they told the plus fee means you can pick your seat on the way back and checked bag. Normally it's €50 for checked bag and that means over and back.they told me the price of checked bag is going up in 2015 and that's why I was charged in total €76 for checked bag. I always flight6d592 with aer lingus and price of bag was always €50 and not broken up I'm very annoyed with this..I like to travel with them and never had any complaints. Regards. Carol Slattery

We booked Aer Lingus to fly from Dublin to Gatwick. Aer Lingus was the only airline flying this route on that day, so I had booked them as opposed to BA. We had some extra baggage, so I went ahead and booked an extra bag ahead of time for 15 Euro. When I got to the airport, I was told that although I had booked and paid for an additional bag, I was still only allowed the same baggage weight allowance for one person (20kg). I cannot understand why anyone would want to purchase an extra bag without wanting extra weight. I assumed I would be allowed 40kg when I booked the extra bag, but I was still only allowed 20kg which would have been the same weight as if I had not booked the extra bag. I am sure that alot of other passengers fall for this! Do not be tricked by this!

In all fairness, Aer Lingus is a good airline to fly light. They have very competitive prices if you travel light, but it can cost you your shirt and pants literally if you are over weight. I almost had to pay 300 Euro in over weight fess. Fortunately the staff at check in allowed me to manipulate the items in my luggage. I carried three coats in my hang on the plane and adjusted items between my luggage and hang luggage.

On every front they are lacking. To start my flight, they wouldn't provide me with seats together with my 5 and 7 year old children on an international flight. A flight attendant finally worked it out, but that's a bit late. Then they lost my luggage for two days and were not forth coming with information and very difficult to contact. I actually had to return to the airport to get information and was told that it had just arrived. The attendant only referred me to the website to get information about compensation for the loss. The woman on the phone in the US was very short and not helpful either.

My soon to be daughter-in-law was traveling from home (USA) to Ireland tomorrow. When booking with Aer Lingus on-line she took note of the confirmation reference. Today, less than 24 hours before departure she went onto the web site to check in for her flight, only to discover that her booking had been "cancelled". When she contacted the airline to inquire why she was was told it was due to an "invalid segment" but the representative could not explain what this was.

While we accept that she should have checked her email for a confirmation, it is totally unacceptable that a flight is cancelled without an alert. She has now had to purchase a replacement flight at a cost of over a third extra. We will be writing to Aer Lingus to complain but in 30 years of flying Aer Lingus from Dublin I have never had even an acknowledgement of a complaint.

Scenario: When purchasing a flight ticket on-line in Euros an paying in British Pound the user has two choices: by default there is a conversion of 0.9 Pounds a Euro when the actual rate is 0.87, alternatively, the user can tick a box so the conversion is made later.
My complain: Since the exchange rate doesn't vary often, Aer Lingus is getting 3% extra of every transaction if the user doesn't tick the box. In other words, 12 Euros extra for every 400. The design of the website is conceived with the intention of misleading and lead the user to the default choice which is more beneficial for Aer Lingus.
It is an scandal that the Association of Computer Machine or the British Computer Society don't pay attention to issues of this kind, I suppose that they are to busy writing codes of conduct.

Booked a flight from Birmingham to Dublin with Aer Lingus rather than Ryanair (paid considerably more) because this is my first flight since major heart surgery and we were testing out how well I travelled and trusted Aer Lingus more.
Booking of flight O.K until we were asked to choose our seats and discovered that these are now to be paid for. Complaint is that this payment was requested after I had pressed the button and paid on credit card for flight. Had never paid for seats with A.L before, always included in flight price (although due to illness it is a while since we travelled)/no indication of additional payment on website although on examining the small print, this was mentioned. When tried to book seats free, message came up to say that all seats except to U.S.A. must be paid for.
We were aggrieved and considered this bad practice and hence, wanted to cancel and go with Ryanair, tried E Mailing - could not - eventually phoned at 10p per minute (in queue so not sure how much it cost us) and told there was no way of getting our money back, also told we did not have to book seats, would be allocated at airport (despite web site saying we had to).
We are not averse to paying for seats but feel this should be included in overall costs like luggage etc., and not as an addition after we have already paid for the flight, which we consider to be very bad practice.
All is forgiven Ryanair; however if we had the choice we would never fly to Ireland again - but we have Grandchildren living there.

I'm a student and my birthday is in October. I've saved some money to go to Portugal for my birthday. I've searched a lot and decided to get the flight from Aerlingus as it was within my budget coz at the same time i found a great hotel deal. When i booked my flight, i chose the insurance as well.The flight on its own is around 133 euros and the insurance 12 euros. Having booked the flight and the insurance, i realized i had enough money for the hotel which had a special offer for a limited time only. I tried to book the hotel but it refused my credit card. Then i realised that the reason why it refused me was that i didn't have enough fund. I called the bank in order to check my balance. I was shocked to hear that i've been charged twice for the flight. I checked my emails. I had three from Aerlingus. On the first one I saw that i was charged for the flight on its own, the second one for the insurance. Guess what? The third one showed that i was charged again but this time for both the flight and the insurance. I contacted Aerlingus in order t get it sorted. A girl told me that i would get a full refund for the extra booking. I'm still waiting after 2 days to get my money back on my card. Unfortunately the hotel doesn't have the same special offer anymore. I'm so so disappointed :(

To whom it may concern,

On Saturday 3042011 i was booked on the 7.15 am Cork to Heathrow flight with my wife & two children. We arrived at the check in desk at 6.40am to be told that the gate was closed but the member of Aer Lingus Staff asked what luggage we had and as we had only one small shoulder bag each (as it was only an over night stay in London) that they should be able to let us on. She tried telephoning the person on the gate and eventually got through to be told that the captain had all his paper work done and would not allow us to board. She insisted again and again that it was a family with two young children and pleaded with the person on the other end of the phone but to no avail. She was annoyed with the situation big time which led me to believe that it was normal practice to rush someone through especially when only carrying very light hand luggage.

She then suggested we book a later flight which would leave at 11.45 am at a cost of 298.10 euros. As we had an important engagement and people waiting on us in London we were given no choice but to go on the later flight. As we had parked in the long term car park we were stuck at the airport and went back to the car with the children to get a bit of rest. As we reached the car which was almost 7.30am we witnessed the 7.15am flight take off.

Later that morning after a meal in the restaurant we waited to board the 11.45am flight. The gate did not open until 11.33am... we all boarded the full flight in 12 mins and we took off on time! Therefore when we were at the airport 35 mins before the 7.15am flight was supposed to take off and subsequently took off at 7.27am I could then fully understand why the Aer Lingus check in staff member thought it possible to get myself and my family on the earlier flight.

Aer Lingus state that their customer service is so good so I cannot understand why one staff member couldn't make an exception to change a small bit of paper work which I believe was well within his or her control. This would have saved us the financial burden and unnecessary stress to my family who were very upset by the whole experience.

I would appreciate some attention given to this matter and convince me why I should use Aer Lingus again having always been my first choice when travelling. Many people have pointed out the fact that Ryanair would not have left us stranded and could not believe that Aer Lingus would treat a family in such a manner.

I await your reply.

Yours faithfully,

David O'Brien.

Tel - [protected] [protected]

My Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Boston was cancelled due to weather on 23 December 2010. Since the entire airport was closed down, Aer Lingus was perhaps understandably overwhelmed and told customers to find our own hotels and flights and we would be reimbursed. We hired a car, drove through a snowstorm to Limerick, spent the night in a hotel, and flew to the US the next day on Delta Airlines. So far we have not gotten any response from Aer Lingus when we have phoned and emailed them to get some compensation--no one has answered our email in almost a month's time, no one picks up on the phone, no one calls back when after an hour we leave a message. How should we proceed when Aer Lingus won't respond at all?

I booked a flight on the internet with aer lingus including booking and paying for 2 cases for which I paid £40.
This does not mean you get twice the weight.
However, when I got to check-in they wanted £186.00 for excess weight.
Yes I was allowed 2 cases - but still only 20kg - not 40kg.

Luckily I changed one case to a 'sports bag' which was genuine, as I only had diving equipment in it -
But not without a lot of fuss.
The girl at check in would not allow it, so I went to their desk at the airport where I was told 'a pink case
Is not a sports bag'. After screaming that I was a sports journalist and would give a very poor report
About aer lingus to reuters, the supervisor was called who made me open my case.
On seeing that there was only diving gear in there, he allowed it to be passed as a sports bag at a cost of £32 (one way).

I went back to check-in and said as I had already paid £20 for the bag, I would pay the difference.
However, this was not possible as they are only allowed to take money and the refund would have to be sorted out in cork.

I got to cork and the representative there said they could not give refunds. For that I would have to write to or fax
Thier dublin office and I would get a response in 28 days - not neccessarily a refund.
There was no facility to phone or email.

Eventually - again after much fuss - the supervisor was called who confirmed that was the case - I would have to write to dublin.
So I had to do the 'reuters' story again after which I suggested he convert the extra I had paid for my case to a sports bag
For my return. He agreed, but only I because I was extremely furious. Anyone who wasn't prepared to scream very loudly, would have been charged 2 x £186.00 for excess baggage.

Last September I booked flights for 9 of us to fly London Gatwick to Nice in August 2017 for our summer holiday.

It has become apparent that on January 8th Aer Lingus announced in a press release that they were cutting back at their Gatwick Base and that all routes bar four were being cancelled, including the Nice route.

Its 27th January now, 3 weeks after they announced this. So far they have made no effort whatsoever to inform me that my flights are cancelled. I have just found out by accident after trying to view my travel details on their website and found that I was unable to input my destination airport as part of their login procedure.

I have spent all day trying to call them but their call centre numbers have been out of order.

When were they going to tell me about this problem?

Were they going to wait until I turned up at the airport on the day?

On January 6th 2009, my husband and two children (7 years old) sat on Aer Lingus EI136 plane to Boston for six hours before they cancelled our flight, due to poor weather. Living in New Hampshire I am use to bad weather and could understand why Dublin Airport was shut down and flights cancelled (of course I think the plane could of taken off at 2pm)
My issue occured AFTER we got off the plane. First we were told to REBOOK our flights ONLINE since Aer Lingus reps were not available. Like I and 80% of the passengers on that flight can pull out a laptop and rebook a flight! I called my family and asked them to rebook for me, but the website would could not process the change and eventually crashed.
THEN Aer Linugus announced that they could not help anyone and we should LEAVE the airport.
So here I am tired and hungry (they gave us coffee and a cookie on the plane) and we have to leave!
We returned to the airport the following day, I went to Aer Lingus because they had added an extra flight to Boston due to the cancelled flight the day before. Do you think we were on it. NO we were not. After much pleading they put me on STAND BY...which we managed to get on (thank goodness) but then the flight was DELAYED for 4 hours!
When we got to SHANNON to pick up passengers the informed us that Aer Lingus gave them all a hotel room, dinner, breakfast and coupouns! All of this we were asked to LEAVE the airport and figure this stuff on our own ONLINE.
I know it was an act of god and Aer Lingus can hide under this clause but doing good business requires some TLC especailly considering the price I pay for these tickets.
If Aer Lingus was not the only airline who flew into Ireland I would off dropped them a lomg time ago.

my girlfriend and i were booked on aer lingus ei562 to barcelona on mon morning aug 17th. flight due to leave dublin @ 6:40am. we arrived in airport @ 5:45am and went straight into the q for this flight, we could not check in online due to a change in a booking detail during that week. we were in the q couple of mins when an aer lingus employee went through the q calling a flight for lisbon, that flight was closing etc.I did not think to ask him about our flight at this time( big mistake) As gates closed 45 mins before boarding by 6:05 we were getting worried, q had barely moved at all. at 6:15 same man comes by again, i asked him straightaway about our flight, he told me it was closed.. told him i was in q for half hour already, he said he had called that flight earlier. said i heard him calling lisbon not barcelona, he told me he called both. We had only carry on bags surely we could make flight which was still on ground for another 25 mins..but NO as has become the norm there was no discusion allowed THEY WERE RIGHT I ( THE CUSTOMER) AM WRONG.

so had to break this news to my girlfriend who was so looking forward to trip.only option was to spend 2 X €75 to get next flight which was at 6pm that evening. €150 extra for a day less in beautiful barcelona.

thank you Aer Lingus i will never fly with ye again.

After nearly 2 years of planning, my husband & I travelled to Edinburgh Scotland, via Dublin Ireland, for the Gathering of the Clans.
We arrived on Friday, July 24/09 and had previously booked tickets for a formal dinner that evening. My kilt, etc. was squeezed into our carry-on luggage. However, my husband's medications (diabetes, high blood pressure) and his evening clothes were in his checked luggage. Imagine our horror when we learned that our luggage would not arrive from Dublin until the following morning!
I tried in vain to reach a Customer Service representative to assist in purchasing other clothes or at least finding something to rent. There was no help available, despite the gallant efforts of the staff @ our hotel in Edinburgh.
We hope to return to Scotland in future & had intended to fly Aer Lingus again. However, unless they come forward with a token of their concern that would assist in our travel plans, we shall find another carrier and suggest the same to our friends.

Mr. & Mrs. R. Todd
[protected]@hotmail.com
Submitted: August 13/2009
cc: file