Sir, - In the light of the recent report damming Aer Rianta customer service, I would like to share my experience.
Having arrived in Dublin Airport with 200 other exhausted travellers from Lanzarote at 11 p.m. on flight FU 1235 on Saturday September 8th, I made my way to the baggage hall.
After 10 minutes we were informed over the PA that our luggage would not be at line 7, as was shown on the monitors, but at line 3. Everyone moved down the hall to line 3 to wait for their luggage.
After 20 minutes of staring at three unclaimed bags going around, someone noticed that their bags were coming out on line 4. The news spread throughout the group and we all switched to line 4.
One of my bags came out on line 4 and we stood for another 30 minutes watching both lines 3 and 4, praying for our bags.
In exasperation I walked back up to line 7 and to my amazement, bags from our flight were revolving on this also. Eventually my last bag arrived on line 7.
I was lucky: most people had to run between three different lines to find their various items of luggage.
All this time, passengers arriving from other destinations were trying to retrieve their luggage also.
The information on the monitors had not changed since we had entered the baggage hall; no announcements (apart from the initial one) had been made; nor were there any staff in the hall to offer any help or explanation!
Like most people, I gave up hope of finding Aer Rianta staff to complain to, and as it was well past midnight I decided to join the lengthening taxi queue, which was unsupervised and chaotic.
Another heartening example of Aer Rianta's commitment to its customers. - Yours, etc.,
R. Russell, Lucan, Co Dublin.