October 27, 2003
Aer Lingus to customers; drop dead
Aer Lingus cabin crew decided to pick this bank holiday weekend to go on strike. Whatever about the fairness of their claim, their decision to ahead with the strike ahead of a Labour court adjudication seems like a deliberate attempt to inconvenience as many people as possible.
I was at Dublin airport this summer, on my way to Germany. I queued at an Aer Lingus desk, marked Europe. When I got to the desk, she said, Sorry, we don't do Germany at this desk.
But Germany is in Europe isn't it? You can't check in here! OK. So where can I check in - she pointed to another desk in the next row. Another desk marked Europe. I went over to it - luckily, at this desk, they recognised Germany as a part of Europe. I pointed out that it would be useful to indicate exactly which destinations were handled at each desk, to save people from queuing needlessly. Blank stare. Silly me - It was only my time that was being wasted - how could that be of any concern to Aer Lingus?
About a month later, I was returning from Rome, again with Aer Lingus. There were two check-in desks, with enormous queues and very little progress. In the adjoining queue, the girl behind the desk suddenly announced that she was closing the desk in two minutes. The people in the queue stared at her in disbelief. There was a group of five people at the front - they asked her to at least check them in. she looked at them, decided it would take more than two minutes, and promptly closed the desk immediately (good girl, take an extra two minutes).
On the other hand, I was on an Aer Lingus flight last week which was hit by lightning as it came in to land. A huge BANG and a flash scared the daylights out of the passengers, but the air hostesses didn't bat an eyelid, and quickly reassured us that all was well.
Posted by Monasette at October 27, 2003 09:54 PM