Hundreds of passengers discommoded as Aer Lingus cancels 11 flights

Hundreds of passengers have been discommoded after Aer Lingus cancelled 11 flights on Friday and Saturday due to a spike in Covid-19 cases and industrial action in France.

The Irish carrier has been wrestling with the fallout from a surge in virus cases that has hit crews for almost two weeks. Aer Lingus has cancelled flights on most days since the latest Covid outbreak became an issue.

The flights cancelled due to Covid on Friday included return flights from to Bilbao, Spain, as well as a flight from to JFK in New York.

A return flight from to Bordeaux was also cancelled due to industrial action at Bordeaux Airport.

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The airline said return flights from to Gatwick in London and return flights from Knock to Gatwick on Saturday are also cancelled due to staffing issues caused by the virus.

In addition, a return flight from Dublin to Amsterdam on Saturday has been cancelled due to a mandate from Schiphol Airport.

Airlines have been forced to cancel hundreds of flights from Schiphol this summer after Europe’s embattled third-largest airport announced it was capping capacity in July and August amid continued bottlenecks and delays resulting from staff shortages.

“Due to a spike in Covid cases, Aer Lingus has been forced to cancel one return flight, and one one-way flight, today July 8th, and two return flights, Saturday July 9th,” said the airline.

“Industrial action at Bordeaux Airport has required the cancellation of one return flight today.

“Additionally, a mandate from Schiphol Airport has required the cancellation of one return flight tomorrow.”

Aer Lingus said it “wishes to apologise to those impacted” and that teams at the airline are working to re-accommodate impacted passengers on the next available services “as efficiently as possible”.

It added that impacted passengers will be contacted directly by Aer Lingus.

“Aer Lingus 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,” it said in a statement.

“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.”

Aer Lingus cancelled two return flights from Dublin on Thursday as a Covid-19 outbreak among staff continued to disrupt travel.

On Wednesday, the airline cancelled five return flights to Britain and Germany, including two services between Dublin and Heathrow, and one each between Dublin and Düsseldorf, Hamburg and Munich.