The aftershocks of the Aer Lingus industrial actions earlier this summer continue to be felt, prompting a reader called Adrienne to make contact to highlight how she has been driven demented for weeks trying to get a refund.
“I’ve been on the phone [with the Aer Lingus customer care line] for 20 minutes, so expect to have plenty of time to tell my story, given the other two calls involved waits of 35 minutes,” she begins.
“Their customer service and industrial action reimbursement is nothing short of a fiasco! At this point I am fully convinced Aer Lingus is actively trying to avoid its commitments and paying out the committed compensation. Please can you take this up and write about it? They can’t be allowed to get away with it,” she continues.
In the middle of May, Adrienne paid just under €70 for a flight from Dublin to London on June 27th, but it was one of many cancelled during the pilots’ industrial action in June and early July.
“Aer Lingus booked me on to a flight the previous day,” she explains.
[ Two Ryanair passengers complain to Pricewatch. The airline is having none of itOpens in new window ]
That did not suit her at all, so “carefully noting the options outlined to me in Aer Lingus’s mail, and in the media”, she booked a new flight departing 11.15am on June 27th and paid €413 for it.
To save you doing the maths, the difference between the old and new fare was €343.
Adrienne says that “following the link in the reschedule email sent to me by Aer Lingus, I completed the compensation request form straight after booking the new flight. On phoning the following day, to inquire whether I’d completed the form correctly, I was assured this was the case.”
She says that on August 6th, Aer Lingus wrote to her and offered compensation of €125, and “not the difference between the two ticket prices as committed! This is €343. The email came from a no-reply address and was ‘in full and final settlement’,” she explains.
So two days later she went in search of an email address “to reject the compensation offer. The email was ‘no-reply’ and the links provided didn’t contain an email. I phoned Aer Lingus at the number provided through a link in the compensation offer. I got through an automated menu, twice selecting the “refund” option.”
When she eventually spoke to a human being, she was told she had not dialled the refund number, but the man could not give her a refund number or an email address. He told her to “send in a Post Travel form. There was no manager available and nothing he could do to help me. I dialled off,” she continues.
‘I searched all the customer care options and there was no way to submit this request unless I raised another, new form. I avoided this, their paperwork is bad enough as it is’
— Aer Lingus passenger Adrienne
“Later I phoned the same number again. I waited a similar time, and this time spoke to a lady who seems both knowledgeable and helpful. She told me this was the right number for refunds and that she could, indeed, help me.”
Adrienne was guided to a web page where she was able to update her case, or so she hoped.
“I had a case number from way back when I submitted my form, so I was happy with this. I couldn’t see the option for ‘Update Case’ on the webpage we were both looking at. She told me it was a technical fault, and I should refresh in 30 mins and it would be there,” she says.
A day later and there was no sign of the “Update Case” option, so Adrienne went searching and found it elsewhere on the Aer Lingus site.
“I filled it in. With the case reference number from way back when I submitted my form in June. The ‘Update Case’ was rejected – my number is 0021**** but the computer told me it had to be a number above 7500000. I tried several times, always the same result. I searched all the customer care options and there was no way to submit this request unless I raised another, new form. I avoided this, their paperwork is bad enough as it is and I didn’t want to give them grounds to reject my claim on the basis of duplication.”
She searched the Aer Lingus site for a complaint form and was brought to the original Post Travel form that she completed back in June.
“There is literally no way to contact Aer Lingus to reject the compensation offer, which does not match their communication during the industrial action, or to complain. I have now been on the phone and in a WhatsApp queue for 55 minutes... and I am still €343 down as a result of buying a flight [that] Aer Lingus committed to refund.”
We contacted the airline and were told it had issued “all relevant payments to the customer on receipt of applications for EU261 compensation and a refund for a fare difference on a cancelled Dublin-London flight. The fare difference refund was processed and paid, three days after the application was submitted. We apologise for any confusion the customer may have encountered regarding the application process. Aer Lingus has processed over 26,000 refunds in relation to the summer disruption and 82 per cent of these were paid within two days.”
The timeline here is somewhat confusing, so it is worth pointing out that Adrienne heard she was getting the money owed to her seven hours after she contacted us and after we had made contact with the airline.
