Aer Lingus cancels more flights over ‘Covid spike’

Aer Lingus has been forced to cancel five return flights from Dublin on Thursday and three on Friday due to “a spike in Covid cases”, the airline said.

The IAG-owned carrier said that one of Friday’s cancellations related to industrial action by ground-handling staff at Bordeaux airport in France. However, most of the scrapped flights related to a Covid outbreak among staff, which Aer Lingus said was compounding the operational challenges already bedevilling European air travel this summer.

The scrapped flights bring to more than 60 the number of Dublin flights axed by European and North American airlines since June 22nd, hitting thousands of passengers. Industrial action, staff shortages and issues with ground handling and security checks at other European airports have variously been blamed for the disruption.

On Thursday, Aer Lingus said that just over 1 per cent of its flights have been affected by cancellations in June.

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“Aer Lingus wishes to apologise to those impacted and teams at the airline are working to reaccommodate impacted passengers on the next available services as efficiently as possible,” the carrier said in a statement.

“Aer Lingus anticipated the return of demand for travel once Covid restrictions were removed and built appropriate buffers into our plans in order to deal with a reasonable level of additional disruption.

“System pressures and ongoing issues at some airports and among third-party suppliers have created considerable operational challenges which have been compounded by a significant spike in Covid cases in recent days.”

Rival Ryanair said strike action by Spanish staff at Malaga and Barcelona had not affected any Irish flights on Thursday.

In a statement, the airline said that there has been “minimal disruption across Ryanair’s 27 Spanish airports, mainly Barcelona & Malaga”, with less than 3 per cent of overall flights to and from Spain affected by union-led strikes in recent days. Ryanair said it is “fully crewed” at all Spanish airports and passengers can expect minimal “if any disruption” this coming weekend due to these “minor strikes”.

Ryanair also welcomed the British Airline Pilots’ Association’s (Balpa) decision to accept a new long-term pay restoration agreement.

After agreeing to pay cuts at the start of the pandemic in 2020, Balpa members voted to accept the terms of the pay restoration agreement negotiated by their union with Ryanair. Aside from pay restoration, the airline said the deal, which runs until 2026, also provides for pay enhancements and other benefits.

“While the recovery from the impact of the pandemic is still ongoing and our industry faces significant challenges, this long-term agreement delivers stability, accelerated pay restoration, future pay increases and other benefit improvements for our UK pilots,” Ryanair said in a statement.

Meanwhile, US carrier United Airlines confirmed that recent cancellations of Dublin-Newark, New Jersey services were not rooted in issues at the Irish airport. United is part of Airlines for United States, which wrote to the Government in June warning over the impact of problems at Dublin and seeking a meeting.

The carrier blamed a technical problem for one cancellation and an unexpected operational issue for the second. It reaccommodated affected passengers.

Airlines for United States affiliate, Air Canada, recently wrote to customers saying it would cancel some July and August flights. However, it confirmed that this would not affect Dublin, but related solely to domestic services from Montreal and Toronto, where it is experiencing most bottlenecks.

American Airlines gave no reason for dropping Dallas and Chicago flights, but added that it reaccommodated passengers on an alternative service.