Aer Lingus

✅ Trip Verified | Had a good flight from Dublin to Amsterdam and great staff on board the plane. The cost of hold luggage with Aer Lingus is robbery as far as I am concerned. I was then travelling onward to Izmir and my flight to Izmir included seat choice, 30 kg hold luggage and food. It was far cheaper than the Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Amsterdam. I had to use Aer Lingus is I had no other choice and that's the only time I use them.

✅ Trip Verified | Glasgow to Toronto via Dublin. Weekend in Toronto for a bit of work and a birthday party, husband and I would normally fly Transat Club or Icelandair Saga. Also frequent BA Buusiness customers. After flying with Aer Lingus, we will never fly with the other carriers again if we can avoid it. From business check-in, to streamlined security and clean, well-serviced lounges - even the pairing with KLM in Toronto was excellent. Polite, well-mannered cabin crew - who could not do more for you and were friendly without being overbearing or annoying. Excellent business class seats with a massage function that reminds me of Delta First before the refurb. Could not more thoroughly recommend the Aer Lingus premium product. The entertainment suite is also excellent

Not Verified | Dublin to San Francisco. First time flying Aer Lingus long haul. Had been told it was the best way to the USA with pre clearance at Dublin. The day we travelled in October must have been Dublin Airports worst day as it took a full 2 hours in a queue to reach the immigration desks. My question is - has Dublin and Aer Lingus expansion into even more US cities started to affect the smooth running of this service? So needless to say everyone was stressed and flight departure times looming so hungry and thirsty we raced to our aircraft 1/4 full and an hours delay. No refreshments offered to those on board waiting and no interaction at all from crew. We had a relatively new A330-300 on our outbound journey which was generally pleasant and clean. Entertainment system poor. 1 hour into the flight we got a soft drink, only non-alcoholic beverages were complimentary. We then got our main meal and 3 or 4 hours in a small tub of ice cream was delivered. No other soft drinks service came round. Everyone kept walking up and down the aircraft trying to get water. I have never travelled long haul and had such poor service. The return journey was on an older A330-200 which was noticeably poorer. Bad sound on the entertainment system. Smaller screens and even worse if not poorer service. As it was a night flight the crew were even more absent and we felt like we were in a desert having to beg for liquid refreshment. Both journeys you get a 'snack' before landing. Aer Lingus seriously need to look at their catering as both legs it was vile. With all the problems we had, I would not use Dublin Airport or Aer Lingus again. Other carriers provide a much better product and service.

Not Verified | Dublin to Milan. Pretty decent, definitely better than Ryanair. It was on time, food was delicious but a bit expensive, it was 5 euro to get a can of soft drink. The seating was comfortable and I had lots of legroom. Overall really good airline.

✅ Trip Verified | Los Angeles to Dublin. The planes was old and appeared tired and worn out. The service was minimal similar to a low cost airline. I had to buy wine or beer to have with my meal. Breakfast was bistro bun in a box. There was little interaction from cabin staff. The entertainment system had a limited choice of old movies. It was a sad reflection of Ireland national airline.

✅ Trip Verified | Dublin to New York. The seats are cramped beyond belief, the website for checking in is atrocious, the policy of not issuing seats if a flight is booked 72 hours before takeoff is a disaster if travelling with children, and the 'lost and found' service has been outsourced in a way that makes sure that items of value are never 'found'. If there was a way to avoid Aer Lingus to get to Ireland, i would take it.

✅ Trip Verified | Dublin to Amsterdam via Belfast. I overbooked hold luggage for a flight in January 2020 Dublin to Amsterdam. I tried to cancel one of the hold bags and get a refund as we wont need anywhere near the load I bought. Can you do this? No chance! There is no facility on their website to do this. We haven't even flown yet.

✅ Trip Verified | Madrid to Chicago via Dublin. I came to Chicago for a very important meeting for the Thanksgiving weekend and my luggage was delayed. The meeting took place in Gainesville, GA. I had to leave Chicago the next day, November 27th, 2019. Due to the fact that my luggage was delayed I had to buy new clothing and all the necessary items needed that were in my luggage. This was a big inconvenience for me since the meeting I attended was 4 days long. I had to buy 6 extra outfits on top of toiletries. The luggage arrived at the airport 2 days later. At that time I was already in Gainesville, GA. The delivery company had called me while I was in the meeting. I got out of the meeting and I spent 20 minutes on the phone trying to find one of the host's neighbors to receive the luggage at 10PM. This, as well, was a big inconvenience. I asked for a different timing for the next day, but I was denied. When I called the claims department to make a complaint about this incident I was told I should have called earlier. I came from Spain to Chicago for a meeting that took place in GA. My schedule was very tight. I called the claims department as soon as I was available to call. At this point I am very disappointed how everything was handled. A luggage has to be with the passenger at all times. I understand that the luggage arrived 2 days later, but it was too late for me. I was out of town already without clothes and other necessities. The meeting was the highlight of my trip. The host's neighbor wakes up early. They can't be staying up to receive my luggage because the delivery company didn't want to accommodate the delivery for the next day. The neighbor wasn’t obligated to do this for me and if he hadn’t done it, the luggage could have been waited outside for a while. The agent from the Central Baggage Services has told me that I should have called earlier. I haven't traveled to the US to spend all my time on the phone, and I had to use the host's phone being in a different country. I travel every year and I used airplanes before, but this was one of the worst experiences I had! During the flight I didn’t receive food as promised. I wasn’t speaking English, so nobody stopped by to ask me if I was hungry or not. Nobody from the personnel was speaking Spanish. How shameful! I asked for a refund and they tell me they can't give me a refund because they didn't sell the ticket directly with me. They expect the agency where I bought the ticket from to give me a refund. The agency didn't do anything wrong. They just sold a ticket. What should they give me the refund?

✅ Trip Verified | Leeds to Boston via Dublin. Due to weather, other airlines made changes to itineraries but Aer Lingus published the flight as being on time. They never provided any updates and said there was no one available to help. The display boards in the Leeds airport said “update at 12:00” then “update at 12:30” then “update at 12:50” then finally after 1:00 the boards displayed “report to gate #“ We reported to the specified gate number to find complete confusion. After standing there for some time with no information, someone from Aer Lingus appeared and said we were being put on a bus to the Manchester airport. It took some time to get everyone loaded onto the bus then the same Aer Lingus person came to the front of the bus and made an announcement. The Aer Lingus person told us an airplane was waiting at the Manchester airport to take us to Dublin and said an Aer Lingus person would meet us at the bus upon arrival in Manchester and escort us. She also asked us to each call Aer Lingus at +353 1 761 7844 to get re-booked on the Dublin to Boston part of the trip. She added that if we couldn’t fly on to Dublin on Sunday that we would be put up in a hotel. It took about 80 minutes for an Aer Lingus representative to answer. A man finally came on the line and said he had no idea what I was talking about and he said he was sitting in New York and wasn’t sure how he could help. He did confirm that there was no way an airplane was waiting for us in Manchester and he finally booked us on a Dublin to Boston flight for Monday. We arrived in Manchester after a long bus ride to a complete customer service disaster. There was no one there to meet us as we got off the bus to escort us as promised. We weren’t sure what to do so we made our way to the Aer Lingus desk where they didn’t have a clue what was going on. They told us to use our original Aer Lingus boarding passes to get through security; obviously, after trying several times we realized that was impossible. We had to go back to the Aer Lingus desk and after another long wait, we were finally booked from Manchester to Dublin. When we arrived in Dublin, there was no one there to help us as promised. After a number of inquiries, we were told there’s an Aer Lingus customer service desk in the baggage claim area. We made our way to the Aer Lingus desk and again no one knew what we were talking about and no one had a clue how to help us, even though we were told this had all been sorted out. An Aer Lingus man didn’t know what to do so he called the Carlton Hotel and over the phone arranged for us to spend the night there. We took the shuttle and arrived at the hotel for the night. This ordeal took 14 hours with Aer Lingus lying multiple times along the way - totally unacceptable customer service, not to mention lost wages and the extreme anxiety their lies caused.

✅ Trip Verified | Seattle to Birmingham via Dublin . I booked a three-segment flight to Birmingham, UK, following the route SLC to SEA, SEA to DUB, DUB to BHX. The first segment was an Alaskan Airlines codeshare. I go to the Alaska Airlines counter at Salt Lake and check-in, as I could not check-in online due to the international segments. They check my luggage through to Birmingham, and tell me to print off my Aer Lingus boarding passes in Seattle. No big deal, I think. That's not an uncommon issue with codeshares. I land at Seattle, 6 hours in advance of my next flight's departure. I exit security and make my way to the Aer Lingus ticket counter. Which, as it turns out, isn't staffed. No problem! I think (foolishly). I'll just check in at a kiosk. Oddly enough, kiosk returns "Flight is not open for check-in." Okay, fine I go to check-in online. But my record locator isn't working, so I call customer service. I inform them I can't print my boarding passes. They give me a record locator and tell me to try checking in online. I try, and the "Reprint boarding passes" button is greyed out. Let's try the mobile app - nope, "No issuing boarding passes" error is returned. I call customer service again. Unapologetically, they tell me to just wait until they start staffing their single ticket counter at Seattle. They also tell me to try calling my travel agency (AmEx Global Travel, in this case, who I'd booked through). I call AmEx. They apologetically explain that they don't even have an agency dial-in to Aer Lingus; they can call Aer Lingus but will get the same runaround as I did. The AmEx agents are always good people. Fine. I decide to chat with an Alaskan rep, who is friendly and tells me "Yeah, Aer Lingus has a tendency to annoy a lot of travelers with their customer service approach." This is 2019. "Printing boarding passes" is sort of a fundamental thing. The second rep I talked to on the phone told me "We're going paperless," which would be great if literally any of their IT toolkits worked properly. The agents didn't know when the kiosks would be available for check-in. Nor could agents release the flight for me to check in again, or authorize re-fetching my boarding passes, or email them to me, or send them via SMS, or authorize their access with their mobile app. If you look at Google Reviews, you'll see that Aer Lingus has a well-deserved 1.2 stars out of 5 at SEATAC. I won't fly Aer Lingus again. Basic customer service can't and shouldn't really be ignored - due to them, I spent 3 hours sitting outside the security zone at SEATAC because none of their agents were either trained or had permission to actually distribute boarding passes. This is senseless, and moreover *easily corrected.* This is not complex work, and not something any other transatlantic carrier operating in North America has issues with. 0/10. Failures happen. I'm not going to judge an airline by its errors, but by how it attempts to remedy them, which in this case, appears to be a determined course of calculated indifference.