Aer Lingus woes (PatJordan avert your eyes!)

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Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

  • Anonymous
    Guest

    SwissExPat
    Participant

    I flew DUB to NCE one way with EI to attend a conference. I try to avoid EI where I can but the convenience of a direct flight at 1030 hrs was compelling.

    Unfortunately I needed to check in 1 bag and this was the problem. I was not sure of its weight but thought to buy in advance the full one bag at up to 20kg for €20. There were options for 15kg and 25kg at a supplement of €15 and €30 respectively.

    I arrived at DUB T2 at 0915 on the Sunday morning. The queue to check bags in at the “Bag Drop” was snaking back through all the available space and overflowing. I though there must be a problem but this was in fact that EI had only 4 of the 12 available desks staffed. There was also a “late” desk for closing flights.

    During the lengthy queuing, there was no announcement as to the reason for the delays nor did there appear to be any EI personnel looking to “manage” the situation by getting more desks operational. It all seemed to be business as usual.

    I joined the queue and then at a few minutes before 100hrs, an announcement was made that anyone booked for NCE in the queue should go to the “late Desk. This I did and handed over my bag. It weighed 14 kgs so I had overpaid by €5. I guess that this was much better than me being 1kg overweight (say 21kg) as I assume I would have been hit by an excessive “at the airport” charge for not having “pre-purchased” the 20kg option. I decided not even to try to get a refund of the over -paid for 5kg of bag weight! I would bet that the highly stratified pricing of bags by weight by EI contributes significantly to the time it takes to check bags onto flights.
    Security in DUB was no problem.

    The flight was fine but I could not understand how it took the trolley operating from the front of the plane to take 40 minutes to get to row 13 to sell the food/drinks. It commenced its service 30mins into the flight so the flight was nearly starting its descent when I was able to get some food.

    All told I was unimpressed with EI and what seemed to be a general lack of customer focus in respect of bag check in. Hopefully the BA acquisition will improve this. By comparison, I regularly check in bags with SWISS at DUB (in T1) and never had a wait of more than 2-3 minutes.

    I would consider using EI again at the right price but would definitely avoid checking in a bag at DUB and also bring my own food on board. There are indeed plenty of deli options at DUB.


    CXDiamond
    Participant

    I’m struggling to understand the problem, bag drop took a while and you were served food on the flight.

    BA have not acquired EI rather IAG have, if BA had you could bet there would be two desks open instead of four.


    PatJordan
    Participant

    SwissExPat,

    How could I avert my eyes from such an eye catching title !!!!

    On a serious note, I am surprised that there was such a long wait for bag drop on a Sunday Morning. Maybe a query to EI wouldn’t go amiss.

    Hope your conference was successful.


    FDOS_UK
    Participant

    “Hopefully the BA acquisition will improve this”

    Absolutely, BA has a reputation built on high levels of customer service, whatever the cost!

    Personally, I wouldn’t arrive at the bag drop 1h15 before an international flight, as I’d prefer to have a little more slack in case of delays (at the drop or through security), but at least you made the flight, so the delays were not a show stopper.

    WRT to BOB F&B, 40 mins to row 13 sounds fairly normal, it was the same on my easyJet flight to Amsterdam from Liverpool, the week before last. I didn’t want anything, as it happened and I’d already taken a bottle of water onboard so I could quench my thirst enroute.

    Handling money/cards does extend the service time noticeably. Edited to add: this is one of the downsides of the BOB F&B model and is irritating if you are not used to it.


    LuganoPirate
    Participant

    I’ve seen this at MXP and JNB. People arguing because they’re just 1 or 2 kgs over the allowance. Then either giving in and paying, or taking items out. Then off course they weight the handbaggage so more delay. In front of me recently was a lady with her two kids and 3 bags. 1 at 22kgs and two at 15 kgs. The desk agent was unyielding, supervisor called, then manager and then with an increasingly impatient queue a major repack as she gave in protesting also the scales were incorrect. Incidentally my bag had also gained 2 kgs since arriving so she was probably correct.

    In their quest for profits it really is the passenger who suffers.


    MrDarwin
    Participant

    I’ve had the same problem checking in luggage at the EI check in. I joined the queue with 45 mins to go before check in closed, knowing full well that it would take longer than that to get to the front of the queue and would ultimately result in me having to go to the ‘closing flights’ desk. I asked if I could just go to the closing flights desk and save myself the time wasted queuing, but no – please wait in line until your flight is closing. The situation was absolutely crazy with the terminal chockers full of people. It was a Sunday too.

    Instead of being able to grab a bite to eat before the flight (and spending money in the airport) I spent the time wasted standing in line to drop off a bag. EI really need to address their check in at busy times, waiting for an hour to drop off a bag is totally unacceptable.


    SwissExPat
    Participant

    Hi All

    @CXdiamond, the problem is that 45-60 minutes is IMHO and unacceptable length of time to wait in a line to simply drop off a bag (note this is not “checking in” since I had already done this). This is exacerbated by the facts that (1) This is EI’s home base airport so they are completely in control of the resources (2) this seems to happen a lot as per Mr Darwin’s post, my experience and that of some colleagues I mentioned the situation to, (3) I even had to pay for the privilege to check the bag in (!) I too like Mr Darwin intended to have a quick meal in the airport before the flight but this could not happen because of the major delay.
    Hence on the flight I was particularly hungry and the crew took an age to do the service (again paid for).By way of a comparative example, EI from DUB to LHR is only 50 mins in the air and crew on these services need to do a whole plane in under 25 mins so they can achieve a quick service if they want to.

    @ MrDarwin,a colleague of mine now only ever arrives at DUB T2 50mins before the flight and goes straight to the closing desk. If only I had known this trick.

    @PatJ I will drop them a note but since my gold circle applicant account has a negative balance on it (I kid you not!) I am not sure they will care very much. I guess I am so used to the service levels of SWISS/BA/LH that EI always seem to have a problem (they cancelled my pre-booked meal a few months ago with no explanation).

    In many ways EI have been quite clever in that they have (save the curtain) completely un-bundled the short haul business class offering and you can buy all the components separately (lounge access, priority boarding, meal, extra bags, seating, more miles etc) so it is not that they lack innovation. It is just the execution that is (sometimes) lacking.

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