A Dublin mum and her five-year-old autistic son are among the dozens of Aer Lingus passengers stranded in Turkey after their Saturday night flight back to Ireland was cancelled.
The airline scrapped 51 flights on Saturday after an IT outage flung their website, check-in and boarding systems into chaos. The issue has since been resolved, but thousands of passengers have been left trying to rebook flights for holidays or get home.
Karen White was due to return to Dublin from a holiday in Turkey on Saturday night but her flight from Izmir was cancelled. She told Dublin Live that herself and her fellow passengers are stranded with no idea how they will get home.
Read more: Chaos as Aer Lingus passengers affected by flight cancellations say they are 'stranded' in Europe
Karen said Izmir Airport has organised a hotel for them until tomorrow morning and she fears she will have to sleep in the airport tomorrow. "It's just terrible," she said.
"There's people here who have had surgery, elderly people in wheelchairs and kids with additional needs and sensory issues are going to be sleeping in the airport tomorrow. Because all of their systems were down, Aer Lingus didn't contact anyone.
"There was no rep from the airline in Izmir airport to even help us, we were just abandoned there. We left the airport at 1am this morning after Izmir Airport realised they had to do something with us because we had no other options.
"Izmir Airport has put us up in this hotel which is about an hour away from the airport itself. We just have bed and breakfast, there's no food. My son is five and is autistic and he won't eat anything. We ended up in hospital with him today because he was so unwell from not eating.
"You're at the end of your holiday as well so money is gone and everyone is due back at work. My son was due to start in an autism class for the first time and it's just not going to happen now."
Karen received a text from Aer Lingus at 1am on Sunday morning which asked her to contact the airline to discuss her options. However, she has not been able to get through to anyone and is receiving an error on the app when she types in her booking number.
Many other passengers took to social media on Sunday to complain about being stranded. One traveller wrote: “Day 2 and left stranded in Nice, France. Despite numerous DMs to Aer Lingus on Twitter, still no response.
"Their phone contact centre continues to disconnect after 2 hours of waiting. Appalling customer service. No response from Aer Lingus at all.”
Another passenger said: “Absolutely disgusting! My parents stranded and another 180 people in Izmir, Saturday night flight cancelled, no communication from Aer Lingus, on hold for hours to be told I'm still 15 in the Que, get in contact with your customers ASAP! And help them get a flight home!”
On Saturday, an Aer Lingus spokesman said the airline apologises to customers for the disruption and told passengers they will be able apply for a refund or change their travel plans. He said: "Any customer impacted by today’s disruptions will be able apply for a refund or change their travel plans, free of charge through Aerlingus.com, our call centres and our social media channels.
"As systems have now been restored we are contacting customers directly in order to re-accommodate them as efficiently as possible. We have made additional customer service agents available to deal with high call volumes – please bear with us as we try to service all customer queries.
"We will also share information regarding customers’ rights and the airlines’ obligations under Regulation (EC) 261/2004."
Dublin Live has contacted Aer Lingus for further comment.
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