Pilot strike: What can I do if Aer Lingus cancels my flight because of a strike?

Under EU rules the airline must offer a refund or a rerouting but it’s not that simple in practiceEarlier this week we got a mail from a reader called Pat who was troubled by news he’d just heard and he wanted to see if we had any advice.

Pat said that the last time he and his wife flew with the airline “the volcano blew up and grounded all flights in Europe and we lost out on a wedding anniversary trip to Paris”. She said agents “are on the front line when strikes, cancellations and other disruptions occur and are the first port of call for customers. While we are always happy to minimise all disruption for our customers, we urge the airline and greater travel industry to put the consumer first in an effort to avoid such disruption to travel plans.

The DIY option makes it tricker and we have seen this before because we have been in strike land before – and not only with Aer Lingus. As a result we have some sense of what might happen next. The industrial action might not happen and Aer Lingus managment and its pilots might do a deal – that is the most optimistic scenario. We have no idea how likely that is.

It is a reasonable question but we’d not be overly optimistic on that score. If a strike happens there will be many thousands of passengers impacted and there is while Aer Lingus might try and get passengers to their destination through other means the chances it will successfully book everyone on different carriers seems remote, much as we might like that to happen.

If he finds himself in this position he will have the same rights under EU Regulation 261 and the airline must offer him and his wife a refund or a rerouting on the next available flight or at a later time of their choosing.

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