Aer Lingus at it again

PaddyGannon

I take 8 to 10 flights per year and weather for personal or business I will shop around and generally take the cheapest.

Maybe one of them a year is with Aer Lingus but every flight I have booked with them in the last 5 years has had a schedule change. My most resent has been changed twice a total of 5 and a half hours. Now the alternative is booked up so I have no choice but to keep these flights even though they don’t suit me.

Aer Lingus, please get it right the first time like your competitors.

Rant over.

Strumms

PaddyGannon wrote: »

I take 8 to 10 flights per year and weather for personal or business I will shop around and generally take the cheapest.

Maybe one of them a year is with Aer Lingus but every flight I have booked with them in the last 5 years has had a schedule change. My most resent has been changed twice a total of 5 and a half hours. Now the alternative is booked up so I have no choice but to keep these flights even though they don’t suit me.

Aer Lingus, please get it right the first time like your competitors.

Rant over.

I think you have been unlucky or else exaggerating... I fly for work and pleasure quite a lot, maybe 20 plus return flights a year on average and I can only recall three schedule changes. Two Aer Lingus and one Ryanair. One of the Aer Lingus flights was only changed by 10 mins.

Yes it's a pisser but it does happen to all carriers and I know myself from working in the industry (not for Aer Lingus) that it is not always within the airlines control.

Just seems you have had a **** load of bad luck.

J.pilkington

Strumms wrote: »

I think you have been unlucky or else exaggerating... I fly for work and pleasure quite a lot, maybe 20 plus return flights a year on average and I can only recall three schedule changes. Two Aer Lingus and one Ryanair. One of the Aer Lingus flights was only changed by 10 mins

Just seems you have had a **** load of bad luck.

Similar experience from me, so it would agree that it seems as though OP is either very unlucky / exaggerating

Shint0

The few times I have experienced this has always been with Aer Lingus and never with Ryanair. On one occasion I only received a text message a couple of hours before as I was getting ready to leave and didn't even see the message for at least half an hour giving me the option of an earlier flight or a later one. I had an onward connecting flight from Heathrow so it put me under serious pressure to make the earlier flight.

I've always wondered if there are genuine reasons or if they simply off-load passengers where there isn't full occupancy. What would be the rate of occupancy where an airline might do this?

Strumms

Shint0 wrote: »

The few times I have experienced this has always been with Aer Lingus and never with Ryanair. On one occasion I only received a text message a couple of hours before as I was getting ready to leave and didn't even see the message for at least half an hour giving me the option of an earlier flight or a later one. I had an onward connecting flight from Heathrow so it put me under serious pressure to make the earlier flight.

I've always wondered if there are genuine reasons or if they simply off-load passengers where there isn't full occupancy. What would be the rate of occupancy where an airline might do this?

The Heathrow example you gave there sounds like something last minute happened to your flight.. maybe the aircraft went technical at another airport and was stuck there and yourself and the 120 or whatever passengers were shoehorned onto other LHR flights out of Dublin. Maybe a Nice flight went technical in Dublin and they decided to use your Heathrow aircraft and crew to go to Nice... that way the people get to Nice on the only flight of the day and you guys get to Heathrow all be it with a little inconvenience on any number of the later LHR flights.. Stuff like that happens all the time. The airline would rather inconvenience somone then canceling a flight.

In the general sense airlines may change a schedule due to a number of reasons...

ATC slot restrictions.
Works at the destination airport.
Aircraft availability.
Crewing reasons.
Weather.. say fog at destination airport reducing the flow of aircraft arriving due to the extra spacing required during low visibility ops (I had a flight to LHR cancelled because of this)

Any of these reasons may not have been aparent at the time of building the schedule...And I could go on...

They don't do it to piss people off or just to make life easier for themselves. Just seems like you have been seriously unlucky.. Ryanair are great on price but when things go south they don't hesitate to just cancel flights and refund you where Aer Lingus will accommodate you in my experience.

yqtwqxqm

OP, Same has happened to me a few times with Aer Lingus.

for example
I have a flight coming back from southern Europe with Aer Lingus that was at 7pm when I booked it.
A week later they rescheduled it to 2pm.
And then about a month later I got a reschedule email to say it was now going to be 12:30pm.

Very annoying. And only happens with Aer Lingus flights.

Strumms

yqtwqxqm wrote: »

OP, Same has happened to me a few times with Aer Lingus.


Very annoying. And only happens with Aer Lingus flights.

It can be annoying if it means you have to significantly change your plans.

In doesn't only happen with Aer Lingus, that's an incorrect statement. Any frequent flyer will tell you that and as I stated in another post it isn't always within control of the airline.

yqtwqxqm

Strumms wrote: »

It can be annoying if it means you have to significantly change your plans.

In doesn't only happen with Aer Lingus, that's an incorrect statement. Any frequent flyer will tell you that and as I stated in another post it isn't always within control of the airline.

Let me clarify my statement then.
I fly on average twice a month to various destinations in Europe.

My flight has been rescheduled many times over the years.

Once by Cityjet
Once by easyjet.
Numerous (double digits) times by Aer Lingus.

The latest example that I gave in the above post did require me to significantly change my plans, as have many reschedules in the past.

Strumms

yqtwqxqm wrote: »

Let me clarify my statement then.
I fly on average twice a month to various destinations in Europe.

My flight has been rescheduled many times over the years.

Once by Cityjet
Once by easyjet.
Numerous (double digits) times by Aer Lingus.

The latest example that I gave in the above post did require me to significantly change my plans, as have many reschedules in the past.

Not exactly clarification of your statement more like changing it. Strange though considering how myself or others in our job have had such little disruption in comparison over 100's of return flights to multiple destinations with them between us if not more.

yqtwqxqm

Strumms wrote: »

Not exactly clarification of your statement more like changing it. Strange though considering how myself or others in our job have had such little disruption in comparison over 100's of return flights to multiple destinations with them between us if not more.

What have I changed?
You challenged my first statement as if I know nothing about flying and you know everything.
I made it clear how often I fly, and that i do have significant experience with multiple airlines in Europe.

I must be very unlucky with just aer lingus so.
And very lucky with the other airlines i have flown with.

Strumms

yqtwqxqm wrote: »

What have I changed?
You challenged my first statement as if I know nothing about flying and you know everything.
I made it clear how often I fly, and that i do have significant experience with multiple airlines in Europe.

I must be very unlucky with just aer lingus so.
And very lucky with the other airlines i have flown with.

You said that it only happened with Aer Lingus flights. When challenged you admitted it was incorrect and not only that but you had experienced it with other airlines yourself. So that is two different statements which contradict each other.

Can you advise where I implied I know everything about flying ? I simply also related my own experiences in the context of the views I was giving.

yqtwqxqm

Oh my God.
Listen to yourself. Do you work for Aer Lingus?
Im out.

J.pilkington

Can also work in your favour, I've had several Ryanair flight changes and twice I've taken advantage of being able to cancel the flight and get a full refund (plans changed / lost interest in the trip).

Strumms

yqtwqxqm wrote: »

Oh my God.
Listen to yourself. Do you work for Aer Lingus?
Im out.

Well, if you read the thread you would know the answer to that question. Seeing as you may not have.... No I don't or have I ever. . Enjoy the weekend so

Shint0

Is the common denominator on this thread at least that it seems to happen more often with Aer Lingus?

I know Strumms has given a lot of reasons as to why it might happen but the only times it has happened to me has always been Aer Lingus and always alerting you just a few hours before offering you either the flight prior to your's or the one after, or to call them if you want to make alternative arrangements.

I always had to wonder how they had enough seats on either of the other two flights to accommodate the extra passengers which used lead me to the line of thinking were they actually off-loading passengers even though they state technical difficulties? Do some airlines actually do this?

Strumms

Shint0 wrote: »

Is the common denominator on this thread at least that it seems to happen more often with Aer Lingus?

I know Strumms has given a lot of reasons as to why it might happen but the only times it has happened to me has always been Aer Lingus and always alerting you just a few hours before offering you either the flight prior to your's or the one after, or to call them if you want to make alternative arrangements.

I always had to wonder how they had enough seats on either of the other two flights to accommodate the extra passengers which used lead me to the line of thinking were they actually off-loading passengers even though they state technical difficulties? Do some airlines actually do this?

They would certainly have enough seats on the LHR route over the period of a day to accommodate passengers unless it was a peak time for demand like bank holiday Friday or Christmas etc... I was in that situation before as i said and the cancellation was weather related... those LHR slots are worth millions and as far as I know it's use them or loose them to a certain extent anyway so the regular practise of canceling flights with low load factors wouldn't happen. I'd say and from what I see on the whole by competitors and on other routes the same applies. If anything they would run the aircraft to LHR 30 % full or close to empty instead of a cancellation. Then again if something goes tits up with another flight they may nick your aircraft and put it elsewhere...

Maybe the issue is that it happens too frequently with Aer Lingus... to be honest the mention in this thread by people who have been put out by it is really the only mention of it by anyone to me that there could be a systematic issue within the company. Who knows.. maybe the stats are out there in the public domain if anyone feels like doing some Sherlock Holmes like detective work.