Five Aer Lingus flights from Dublin airport have been cancelled today after a number of staff called in sick with COVID-19.
As a result, three flights to London Heathrow, one to Hamburg and another to Berlin will not take off.
Ireland is currently experiencing something of a surge in COVID cases with the number of people in hospital with the virus steadily climbing and six Aer Lingus flights were also cancelled yesterday for the same reason.
It is a problem that travel writer Eoghan Corry says the aviation sector is struggling to deal with:
“All the airline, all the service areas, the airport itself - famously with security queues - have run into this problem,” Mr Corry explained.
“You run through your standby staff fairly quickly and the other issue is with delays you can also run into crewing issues.
“Airlines are not like shops. You don’t hire someone to do overtime or ask them to do an extra few hours.
“With pilots and cabin crew, if you’re out of hours, you need a new crew.”
CXCFYC Terminal 1 (T1) at Dublin Airport. Republic of Ireland.Compensation
Mr Corry said that people whose flights are cancelled should go to flightrights.ie but added that your rights vary widely depending on the circumstances:
"It's a little bit of every man for himself... the rights that they have are in their favour,” he explained.
"Under EU 261, airlines have to get you back and compensate and there's no ambiguity about what they have to pay for food, accommodation, things like that.
"In the absence of a communication from an airline, make your own way back and chase it down afterwards is pretty much what I'd advise.
"The reality is airlines are supposed to be in touch with you, they're supposed to e-mail you.
"Short notice is not unusual by the way, that happens a lot - aircraft go tech, or crew go out of hours, that's a big issue with delays.
"And airlines don't have much notice themselves about when flights will be cancelled: the real problem here is the breakdown of communication."
Main image: An Aer Lingus aeroplane.
