Aer Lingus > Reviews > I wonder what Lingus actually means

Author's product rating:   

Food Quality	Very poor
Customer Service	Unhelpful
Punctuality	Poor
Space	Terrible
Value for Money	Poor

Advantages:	Struggle to think of any
Disadvantages:	Usually late, cramped, no refreshments

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

I was 'lucky' enough to endure regular twice-weekly flights with Aer Lingus through work, involving return trips to Dublin from London Heathrow. In fact, it became a regular Monday morning feature to see/hear me tearing through LHR T1 desperately trying to make it from the check-in desk to the departure inevitably running late (because why would you do anything other than leave getting up and ready until that last possible second at the start of every working week?). Unfortunately, the days on which I was really, really running late were the only days on which passengers were being promptly guided onto the aircraft at the originally planned boarding time. And you, dear reader have no idea how frightening the sound of a dinky elephant running as fast as possible carrying an overpacked laptop bag, dragging a roller case along those moving walkways can be to some people: I mean there were some genuinely traumatised beings settling into those aircraft seats, for which I do have to take full responsibility.

For 85% of remaining journeys, sitting aimlessly at the gate, wishing I'd actually run into Costa on the way and nabbed one of their humungous-sized coffees, became the story of my Monday morning life. And I'm not sure whether these delays were deliberately inflicted upon us, because gates 87-91 are further away from any check-in desk than any other gate I've experienced in my life, and the airline wanted to make sure people had plenty of opportunity to get to the flight before it took off or not. I know the gate allocation isn't entirely down to the airline, but Lingus are meant to be a BA code share, so I'd have thought they'd try to get a location somewhere closer, if only to ensure that their passengers didn't get lost in a T1 corridor labyrinth, wondering if they'd ever make it out alive.

Now, ordinarily, the fact a plane's late on Monday morning just means I spend less time sitting in an office that day, which I doubt anyone would really argue is a problem. But to be delayed 100% of the time on the Thursday evening return trip home was just too much for me to bear. So much so, that I switched to flying Air France from London City, despite the fact that the airport's more difficult to get to.

But this isn't even the start of the Air Fungus experience: I've not pointed out that e-tickets didn't exist throughout my Dublin tenure, which meant that check-in every Monday morning was a complete lottery unless one benefited from a business seat (yeah, right - not with my firm). Unlike British Airways, there is no marshalling of the queue at all to ensure that those who need to get on the next flight are pushed to the front of the queue because they failed to predict that a million people (tourists) had pitched up 3 hours early for a flight with 10 bags each to check-in on that particular Monday morning. Bear in mind that this is in spite of turning up with an hour to spare anyway. Nor is there a full complement of ground staff to ensure all check-in desks are open when it's unbelievable busy. So you stand in line, and if you're lucky - you get to the front before check-in closes and you are waved to the sales desk where extra, extra late check-in can be completed and passengers kicked off on the special Terminal 1 marathon to gate 91. And here was me thinking that it's a great business opportunity to reduce your operating costs by have self-service check-in and gain some customer brownie points by avoiding this random airport hell.

This is a compliment to the Irish: they're a more petite nation than us increasingly obese citizens from across the water. However, I'm not the tallest nipper in the world at 5'5", so it's a bit disturbing when my knees are wedged against the economy seat in front. No great shakes for an hour flight, but for the actual cost of the ticket, no great bargain for this lack of legroom luxury either. And I might be old-fashioned in the air travel stakes, but if it's going to cost around £140 a return ticket to Dublin, I want a bit of orange juice and a mini-croissant thrown in. I'll buy my own coffee, though: it would be a shame to waste all that coffee-laden marathon training so soon...

A friend of mine refers to Aer Lingus as Air Fungus, and I can see where he's coming from. There is this slightly 'shoddy, but you'll eventually get there' approach to the whole operation. Either compete in the business market, or go up against Ryanair - but for God's sake don't trap yourself in the no-man's-land of 'we're not economic, but you won't get decent service either' box. That's a sure sign of airline demise the moment the government subsidies run out.