Aer Lingus flight cancellations will affect 4,000 people this weekend

James Cox

Around 4,000 people will be affected by Aer Lingus flight cancellations this weekend.

It’s a mixed bag at Dublin Airport today, with queues moving relatively smoothly.

Wait times at security in both terminals are between 20 and 25 minutes.

That’s around the average time at any given hour this morning, aside from when a rush of passengers between 3am and 4am led to queues spilling out the door of Terminal 1.

Aer Lingus passengers continue to be haunted by cancellations, after flights to Gatwick, Lyon and Amsterdam were pulled.

The airline says the cancellations are caused by a Covid spike among their staff, as well as strikes in France.

Meanwhile, Swissport, one of the baggage handlers at the airport, has apologised for its part in delays and complications.

'Horrendous'

A woman has described as "horrendous" her experience at Dublin Airport after her flight to London was cancelled one hour after it was due to take off.

Gemma Jones was due on a flight from Dubin to Gatwick just before 6pm on Monday, returning home after a trip to Ireland to visit her partner.

She told BreakingNews.ie: "It was horrendous. We got to the boarding gate around 4.30pm, the flight was supposed to take off at 5.55pm. Nothing happened for a very long time, we just sat around waiting. Nobody came to the gate to tell us anything.

"The time the gate was meant to close passed, there was still nobody from Aer Lingus around. Around 6pm somebody came and said they didn't know what was happening, but they would find some information for us."

After an hour since the flight was scheduled to take off, "a worker from another gate came over and said 'oh, should you not have taken off by now?"

"We said 'yeah, what's going on? We don't know anything'. She rang someone, and when she got off the phone she said 'I'm sorry to tell you, but your flight is cancelled'."