Agnes Fox spent two years planning this holiday to Australia to see her son Kevin. It was to be her first trip abroad and perhaps the final time the 77-year-old would travel so far from her Sligo home.
Now she might not make it to Melbourne at all. The problems with Aer Lingus meant the family's flights to London, Heathrow on Friday were cancelled. The only alternative, Ryanair flights to Stansted with a 1½ hour connecting train ride, all at the cost of more than €200 per person, meant she was considering cancelling yesterday.
"I just think it will be too much for me," she said. "I am thinking about not going at all. I can't run around the way I used to."
It has taken two years for her to save the €1,300 the trip cost. "I am very upset, devastated," she said. "And angry at Aer Lingus because they just don't seem to care. If I don't go this time I will probably never travel again."
This disappointment was felt across the country yesterday by those with travel plans involving Aer Lingus. Travel agents representing groups making their way to the World Cup next week are frantically trying to make alternative arrangements to get their clients to Tokyo.
Wisely, some agents had already been transferring bookings from Aer Lingus to British Midland and other carriers in anticipation of the strike. But others will spend the next few days trying to get customers onto already overbooked flights. One industry source who didn't want to be named said customers were "appalled" by how the national airline is treating travellers.
"There is some level of understanding about the strike on Thursday, but people are bewildered as to why they are pulling the plug on weekend flights as well," she said. "The general consensus seems to be that Aer Lingus is going the way of a low-cost airline in their attitude and practices".
Hazel Murphy of Blackrock Travel in Co Dublin said she blamed the media for the public confusion. "On the nine o'clock news and the papers, Roy Keane has been seen as more important than the problems of our national airline," she said.