Around 4,000 passengers will be affected by Aer Lingus cancellations this weekend due to Covid cases among the airline’s staff, with an expert warning that it could take "four to six months" to resolve.
A total of six Aer Lingus flights have been cancelled so far on Saturday, which comes after the airline grounded 50 flights on Friday. Today, a set of flights to and from Lyon, London Gatwick and Amsterdam have been cancelled, with the airline stating the Lyon cancellations were due to industrial action from ground handling staff in the French city.
Padraig Ó Ceidigh, the founder of Aer Lingus Regional, told Newstalk that he believes it could take several months to sort out the ongoing issues.
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He said: “I believe this is something that’s going to take anything between four and six months to resolve. Because there are a combination of factors that are seriously impinging flights and cancelling flights - not only in Dublin but all over Europe as well.
“Obviously, one of them is the huge breakout in Covid; allied to that are the issues that airports are having - particularly Dublin Airport - with regards to enough manpower or person power.”
Since the end of international travel restrictions, thousands of passengers have missed flights because of delays getting through security, and Mr Ó Ceidigh said that this could also be traced back to Covid-19 related issues.
He explained: "The shortage of staff is caused by two reasons. One, it’s caused by airports overcompensating and letting go of too many staff [during the pandemic].
“And secondly now, that’s compounded by the fact a number of staff are reporting to work saying that they’ve got COVID and they cannot work for a number of days. Now, the replacement of staff is going to take, in my view, three to four to five months to replace an adequate number of staff," he added.
Aer Lingus had already announced the cancellation of three return services today between Dublin and London, Dublin and Amsterdam, as well as a return flight between London and Knock.
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Three further return flights, which had been scheduled for tomorrow, have now also been cancelled.
They included routes between Dublin and Lisbon, Dublin and Milan and between Dublin and Amsterdam.
Meanwhile, industrial action by ground handling workers at Lyon Airport in France has also required the cancellation of two return flights to Lyon today.
A 16 flights have been cancelled this weekend, following dozens of cancellations earlier in the week. Aer Lingus has also issued an apology to the affected passengers.
The airline said teams are working to accommodate those affected "on the next available services as efficiently as possible".
In a statement, Aer Lingus said it "anticipated the return of demand for travel once Covid restrictions were removed and built appropriate buffers into our plans in order to deal with a reasonable level of additional disruption".
"System pressures and ongoing issues at some airports and among third party suppliers have created considerable operational challenges which have been compounded by a significant spike in Covid cases in recent days," it added.
Aer Lingus has also advised customers affected by the flight cancellations that details of their rights and the airline's obligations under EU regulations can be found on its website.
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