It takes a lot to shock Pricewatch, but the ordeal Aer Lingus put a family through as they were coming – or trying to come – home from Florida early this year left us shocked.
And the manner in which the family were ignored by the airline when they all did manage to get home left us appalled.
On September 14th a reader called Brian bought return tickets for two adults and two (or one) children flying to Miami on December 22nd and home to Ireland on January 3rd. The purpose of the trip was to visit family in the US and spend the Christmas period with them.
“These flights were booked online and as my son was still 1 year old on 22 December 2024 (he turned 2 the following day), when booking online we were only provided with the option of an infant ticket where he would not be given his own seat,” Brian writes.
“After booking the flights, my wife phoned Aer Lingus to inquire as to whether it might be possible for us to book a seat for [our son] as he is large for his age and we anticipated that it would be very uncomfortable to undertake such a long flight holding him in our lap.”
She was told that this was not possible as children under the age of two must share a seat with a parent/guardian.
She then asked if the family could book their son his own seat for the return leg of the journey “as by that time he would have turned two years old and would no longer be considered an infant for the purpose of travel. Again, we were informed that this could not be done, but that there would be no issue with travelling and if we were to explain the situation upon checking in at Miami the staff might be able to arrange for us to be seated near an empty seat”.
Obviously the family accepted this arrangement “even though we would have preferred to purchase him his own seat and were more than willing to pay for this option”.
[ Aer Lingus passenger abandoned at Charles de Gaulle and then ignoredOpens in new window ]
When leaving Dublin just before Christmas – and the day before their son’s second birthday – they explained the situation at the check-in desk “and the Aer Lingus employee at the counter very helpfully sat [my wife] beside an empty seat so that our son could have his own space. No mention was made of the return leg, and we assumed (as we had been explicitly led to believe), that we might be able to make a sim...
[Short citation of 8% of the original article]