Mixed reactions from airline passengers

AER Lingus passengers may have been shocked by the media scrum that assembled to record their return to Ireland from Tenerife on Tuesday evening. TV cameras, photographers and reporters were in Shannon following the arrival of the first plane into Ireland since the previous Thursday.

Kieran Rouse was the first man to step out of the arrivals hall and he said that his holiday had been extended by three days. “We were in Tenerife for a week’s holiday, we were supposed to be back last Saturday. Last night, someone told us to book an Aer Lingus flight home. We got a text this morning at 6.30am saying it was cancelled. We went back on the computer again to see if we could get another flight. We found out the flight to Dublin was leaving at 2.30pm and was being diverted to Shannon. I’m lucky, my car is here in Shannon!”
He had been on a family holiday and said the disruption hadn’t hit his travelling party as badly as some others. “We were in the hotel all the time but there were other people who were in the airport for days. People are delighted to be back and Aer Lingus did everything in their power to get us here.”
Veronica Brennan was much less pleased with the airline. “We were due back last Thursday, I was crying to come home. It was too long, too stressful, running out of money. We had to keep changing apartments and keep going to the airport. The treatment we got was very bad. There was nobody to tell us what the situation was, what was happening. I wasn’t one bit happy with Aer Lingus.”
Some people in Tenerife had serious problems with accommodation, according to Martha Beardmore of Clonmel. “We were very lucky because we had accommodation. We didn’t get any notification about our flight. Last night at 11 I booked a flight that was due in Dublin this morning and we paid €250 per person. We had a place to stay and we had money but there were a lot of people who had neither. We heard this morning that there are people sleeping on the beach because they can’t afford accommodation.”
She felt that Aer Lingus could have had more communication with passengers. “They really didn’t contact us at all about our first flight (which was cancelled), but we knew through Sky News that there were no flights going. I found them good last night when I went to book the flight but today we were sitting around the airport until lunchtime with no contact with anyone.
“As we were leaving to go back to our apartment we met the captain and the crew going in the door and we turned around and followed them. From that point on they were excellent.”
The arrival of the Aer Lingus flight at Shannon was followed by a number of British Airways flights, as Irish and European airlines began to return to normality.

Tales of woe from weary travellers
MARK Dunphy from Connolly arrived home this Tuesday after an unforgettable trip to Paris.
Unforgettable for the wrong reasons, as the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull volcano ended up keeping him and his family away from home for longer than was planned, costing them an extra €1,500.
The Dunphys left Shannon on Tuesday of last week for Disneyland Paris and at that stage, they expected to be at home again on Friday.
After the family’s return flight was cancelled, Mark found that the French had begun trying to fleece their tourists in a most Irish way.
“They were looking for €495 for two adults to take the Eurostar (train) from Paris to London. At other times, it’s about €65 per person. When we went back to our hotel at Disneyland, they were looking for €1,000 a night for a room. That was without meals or any extras. Before that they had been charging €450 and that was including breakfast, dinner and admission to Disneyland.”
They did manage to get alternative accommodation at a significantly lower price, adding that Ennis man John Maher, who is domiciled in Paris and runs a holiday home village, was very helpful.
After going back to Gare du Nord in Paris on Saturday, the Dunphys did manage to get seats aboard Eurostar. After the long trip to London, they stayed with Mark’s aunt in Essex. The next step was a trip to Swansea to catch a ferry to Cork, before they could begin the final leg.
“We got home four days late, we’d had to travel thousands of miles and it cost another €1,500. For bigger families, there would have been even more financial heartache,” he said.
Shannon Airport had been littered with people who were stuck in Ireland after their flights home were cancelled.
Fran Mitchell had spent a few days in Ireland and had hoped to fly to England for business, before the elements took over. “I’m from Oregon and I’ve been in Ireland for the last five days. I was supposed to fly to London for a conference that’s starting tomorrow. I don’t have the phone number of the person I was staying with here, so it looks like I’ll be staying at the airport,” she told The Clare Champion last Thursday.
Eleanor Christopher from Clonmel had been hoping to go to France last weekend and the cancellation of her flight threw her plans into disarray.
“We couldn’t get any information this morning so we had to come up to Shannon. I’m due to see eight estate agents in France this weekend..”
She said that she hadn’t been able to establish if her flight would be going while she was at home.
“On Ryanair’s advice line, they told us to check the website, that was it. On the website, they didn’t say our flight was cancelled.
“They said they’d review it at one o’clock but the flight was supposed to be at 2.20pm, so we had to come here. It’s been cancelled now, it’s a joke,” she said.