A reader called Rosemary begins her mail with a simple plea. “I wonder if you could help me, please,” she writes. And when you hear her story, you will see why we had to act immediately.
Rosemary is in her late 70s, and her husband is a little bit older. Together they try to bring their son on holiday every year to Madrid, where he enjoys visiting zoos and doing other fun activities. They always book through Aer Lingus.
Their son has cerebral palsy and scoliosis and uses a wheelchair. “He cannot weight-bear and is totally dependent on us and other carers for his needs,” says Rosemary. “Fortunately my husband and I enjoy good health and are able to manage looking after him when he is with us.
“Until this year I have been able at the time of booking the flights to select three seats together in the second or third row from the front of the plane, and happily pay the surcharge,” she continues.
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She needs to do this because her son “feels extremely nervous that he will fall off the very narrow wheel ‘chair’ which designated staff use to bring him on to the plane, so the nearer he is to the front, the less anxious he is that he will unbalance”.
She points out that the front row is not permitted to them, as it is considered an emergency row.
“Trying to wheel him further down the narrow aisle is unmanageable, and also, he needs us to be beside him,” she says.
In early March, she booked return flights from Dublin to Madrid for the three of them, with the flight departing in the middle of May and returning a week later.
“However, the Aer Lingus website did not give the option of booking seats at the same time,” she says.
So she contacted Aer Lingus by phone and ended up on hold for 45 minutes. “I explained that I wished to book return seats. I was told they were in partnership with Iberia Airlines, and to contact them.
“I phoned and explained the circumstances again. He told me to phone Aer Lingus, as I had booked through the Aer Lingus website. I phoned Aer Lingus again, went over the whole thing again, and was told that it was something I had to take up with Iberia Airlines, as an Iberia Airlines plane was being used for both flights.”
Rosemary was then told she couldn’t select seats until 24 hours before departure both for Dublin and Madrid.
“I phoned Iberia Airlines again, and again explained the circumstances. I also explained in Spanish, to be sure he was absolutely clear on my request.”
It just so happens that Rosemary is a retired Spanish teacher. She was told to expect an email.
A couple of days later she received the promised email, which said she could not book the seats she wanted and she would be able to select them “at the time of check-in”.
She says: “Surely there should be allowances made for the extenuating circumstances of disabled flight passengers. I insisted at each phone call that we were happy to pay the seat charge but that we couldn’t risk not getting seats near the front, and together, until 24 hours before departure in Dublin and Madrid, as other travellers booking seats could well get there before me. When booking the flights I clicked on the ‘wheelchair to cabin seat’ box, so have already flagged that our son is a wheelchair user. Please, please could you take up our case?”
So we did.
“Aer Lingus and Iberia sincerely apologise to our valued customer for the delay in communication regarding their booking request,” a spokeswoman said. “We are pleased to have resolved this matter for their outbound and return journeys. We look forward to welcoming the family on board in May.”
We also heard two other stories regarding the airline.
“I have spent since last June trying to get my compensation from Aer Lingus for a cancelled flight,” writes Dave. The cancellation impacted on three travellers, who – he says – were entitled to €400 each.
He says he has made numerous attempts to contact Aer Lingus using the airline’s claim form process, “which just gives an automated response. I did after many times of trying manage to contact them, [and] they informed me that my claim number was no longer valid, as they had moved to a new claims IT system and my claim must not have transferred over.”
He was given a new claim number, through which he has “since been trying to get an update. They don’t answer phones, I have made contact through their WhatsApp link, with initial positivity I might be getting somewhere, then back to ‘We’ll update asap’.”
And then there was Paul. He says he decided to write to us “as a last resort, to try and get Aer Lingus customer service to at least engage with me, other than sending me ‘no reply’ emails for months.”
He booked a business class seat on a December 28th flight to Malaga at a cost of €80.
“I was bumped off and my seat given to another person, and was given numerous reasons by aircrew and ground crew.
“I have been trying to get my €80 returned and an explanation as to why I was bumped off,” he writes.
“This was the second time I have booked the bigger seat and have been bumped off. The first instance was in September, and I did receive an email in advance, but the plane had not changed, as was [the] excuse given in the email. I did get a refund on that occasion, but no explanation as to why I was bumped.”
In response to Dave’s issue the airline issued the following statement. “Aer Lingus regrets the delay in processing this customer’s compensation request, which arose while the airline was experiencing a large volume of cancellations last summer. We have reviewed the case and have now processed this payment as a matter of priority. We recognise the frustration that this customer felt as a result of their experience, which fell short of our standards on this occasion. We appreciate their feedback on the challenges they encountered in resolving this issue, which we are actively working to address.
And we got this response in relation to Paul’s problem: “Aer Lingus has apologised to this customer where their pre-booked seat wasn’t available at the time of their flight. We have refunded the seat fee charged and reached out directly to them to express our regret.”
