• Aer Lingus A321LR
    Aer Lingus
    IATA/ICAO Code:
    EI/EIN
    Airline Type:
    Full Service Carrier
    Hub(s):
    Dublin Airport
    Year Founded:
    1938
    Airline Group:
    IAG
    CEO:
    Lynne Embleton
    Country:
    Ireland

Aer Lingus will be seeking compensation from its IT provider Kyndryl over last month’s IT meltdown, which canceled over 60 flights out of Dublin.

Unprecedented chaos

On September 10, 32,000 Aer Lingus passengers faced mass delays and cancellations after construction work damaged a fiber optic cable, wiping out the carrier’s check-in and boarding systems. Issues compounded after it was found that a network card used in the airline’s backup systems was not functioning, leaving Aer Lingus without passenger information for up to ten hours.

After hours of chaos, the airline ultimately decided to cut around 50 Dublin-originating flights after 14:00 IST, leaving thousands of passengers stranded. Low-cost competitor Ryanair took advantage of the meltdown, offering exclusive €100 rescue fares for passengers stranded in Dublin, Cork, and Shannon.

Speaking at an Oireachtas Joint Committee for Transport and Communications on Wednesday, Donal Moriarty, Aer Lingus’ chief of corporate affairs, explained that the Irish flag carrier would be seeking compensation from Kyndryl for both itself and its customers for the outage.

Committee Deputy and Independent TD Michael Lowry claimed that he was “gobsmacked” by the crowds of Aer Lingus passengers at Dublin Airport while passing through on September 10, describing it as a PR disaster for the carrier.

Lowry reported that no one seemed to know what was happening, with many finding out about the cancelations through social media.

“People hadn’t a clue what was going on,” Lowry said. “They were getting frustrated. They were tired. Some of them had been there all day.”

Inside the Joint Committee Inquiry

Chief executive Lynne Embleton apologized for the outage’s impact on its customers, highlighting that it was “completely unprecedented” that the system and its backup would fail simultaneously, with no such failure seen in over 4,000 incidents.

“The scale of the disruption was phenomenal,” Embleton added, referring to the incident as an “uncomfortable day all around.”

“Both have now been fixed, and that should prevent an outage of that type ever happening again,” she stressed.

Aer Lingus A330
The carrier has processed 91% of its refund claims, with the remaining 700 expected to be completed by the end of the month. Photo: Aer Lingus

Moriarty noted that the airline had implanted a new monitoring system and replaced the failed backup card, with Aer Lingus also looking for a “tertiary system” to add further resilience.

According to airline chief customer officer Susan Carberry, approximately 7,500 customers had sought compensation from the airline, with the airline having processed 91% of them. The remaining 700 applications are expected to be processed by the end of October.

Aer Lingus has not disclosed how much money had been paid out in compensation, though it is in “the millions of euro,” as reported by RTÉ.

Carberry notes that 11,000 customers’ flights were canceled during the outage, with another 21,000 experiencing delays. Customers on the canceled flights were re-accommodated within 72 hours.

Delays were cleared by September 11, with the carrier operating at 98% of its schedule.

Aer Lingus will continue its independent questioning of Kyndryl about the event, with Embleton adding that a “robust backup system” is part of an agreement between the airline and its IT provider.

What are your thoughts on Aer Lingus’ decision to seek compensation? Did the outage impact your flight on September 10? Let us know in the comments.

Sources: The Irish Times, RTÉ, The Independent Ireland