IN TRANSIT:NOW THE DUST has settled on the great ash crisis of 2010, readers have been assessing how airlines at home and abroad handled the situation – and one of the clearest messages is that many of those trying to get home felt abandoned.
One reader who found himself stranded in Milan at the start of the airspace shutdown told Go how Aer Lingus bussed him and 50 others to a hotel on the Thursday of the shutdown, provided them with accommodation for the night and then seemed to disappear.
The following day passengers were told by the hotel they had to check out. As they could not contact anyone from Aer Lingus at Milan airport or in Dublin, they felt they had no option but to bus it back to Ireland, at a cost of more than €1,000 each. They will try to recoup their costs from the airline, but their chances of succeeding are slim, as they broke their contract with the airline by not waiting to be rerouted. “I would argue that the airline broke their contract with us, by abandoning us and not giving us access to any information at all or providing us with the accommodation or refreshments to which we were legally entitled,” our reader said.
John McNeilly, who had flights from Majorca to Dublin with Ryanair, was less than pleased with the way his airline handled the situation even when flights restarted. He says a backlog of people trying to return home built up, “with many frantically booking the next available seat”, which was sometimes for a flight 10 days away.
As he sees it, the problem was that Ryanair “simply refused to entertain a standby list, so flights were allowed to leave with empty seats, as passengers with seats booked [on them had already] made alternative arrangements to get home”.
Kilian Kelly was similarly unimpressed with Etihad. He was to fly back to Australia with his wife and baby. He says the airline failed them miserably. “They have not contacted us once since the disruption began, and have point-blank refused to provide us with any assistance, such as accommodation or meals.”
He says the airline also changed his revised booking from a Thursday to Saturday without telling him. He claims he found out only when he checked his itinerary online.
When he called Etihad to ask for an explanation, the person he spoke to “said he had no idea what had happened. When I insisted on speaking to a supervisor, I was put on hold; then the call was terminated at the other end”, after which contact effectively ceased.
Kelly’s experience notwithstanding, Etihad came in for praise from readers, particularly those who were en route when the cloud descended. Derek Peyton was stuck in Abu Dhabi on his way to Dublin from Bangkok. “I must pay tribute to Etihad, who got me home after more than a week at their expense in a super hotel. Their staff were exemplary in efficiency, kindness and patience. They even helped get me my necessary daily medication, which ran out at an early stage of the stopover.”
Cóilín Ó Coigligh also found himself stranded in Abu Dhabi after an Etihad flight to Dublin from Australia was grounded. “We were given meal vouchers and vouchers for hotel accommodation. As there were no hotel beds in Abu Dhabi we were transported to Dubai – in my case by taxi; for others by bus. We were put up in the Ibis Hotel, a new three-star facility in the Al Barsha district. All meals were provided, and there was a continuous presence in the hotel of at least two reps from Etihad,” he writes.
After being transferred back to Abu Dhabi, they stayed in five-star luxury for three days until planes were allowed to take to the air again.
Martine O’Dwyer highlighted her experience with Turkish Airlines. Her son was due to fly to Addis Ababa on Monday, April 19th. “On Sunday evening I got a call letting me know that the flight was cancelled and that I would be contacted the following day. At noon on Monday I got the call and was asked would I like a refund or to rebook flights. As my son could not travel again before the end of May I asked for a refund, and gave my credit-card details. On Wednesday I got an e-mail to say that the refund had been done. How about that for service?”
Tour operators came in for high praise, as the crisis made people realise how much more protected they were as part of a package deal rather than on a DIY holiday. “Joe Walsh Tours got my mother and 78 others home from Lourdes by boat,” wrote another reader. “Fed and watered all the way! Excellent.”
