Aer Lingus loses San Francisco flight due to staff illness

Airline looking to reallocate passengers at Heathrow as it is forced to cut flights every day

Aer Lingus had to cancel its flight to San Francisco on Monday due to unexpected illness among crew. The airline had not anticipated issues with any flights on Monday outside of one “mandated cancellation” as a result of a cap on passenger numbers imposed by Heathrow airport in London. However, it said later on Monday that the San Francisco flight that had been scheduled to take off at 12:35 was cancelled.

The airline said its customer-care team was working to reaccommodate passengers on the next available services. The airline operates just one return service a day to San Francisco.

The airline also updated its list of cancelled services for the rest of this week due to the Heathrow cap. The 7:30pm flight from Heathrow to Shannon was cancelled on Monday. That same flight will also be cancelled Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, as will the 9:25pm return from Shannon to Heathrow.

On Friday the airline will cut its 5pm service from Dublin to Heathrow and the return flight which was scheduled to take off from London at 7:29pm.

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The afternoon flight from London to Shannon, leaving at 3:28pm, will not operate this week, and nor will the first flight out of Heathrow destined for Cork Airport at 9:20am on Sunday.

The airline said it “deeply regrets the impact these mandated flight cancellations, which are entirely out of our control, are having on our customers”.

It said that, given the number of service its has out of the London airport, most customers should be re-accommodated on flights on the same day.

Dominic Coyle

Dominic Coyle

Dominic Coyle is Deputy Business Editor of The Irish Times