{"id":409593,"date":"2026-04-21T06:59:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T06:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/409593\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T06:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T06:59:09","slug":"about-23000-aer-lingus-passengers-to-face-flight-disruption-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/409593\/","title":{"rendered":"About 23,000 Aer Lingus passengers to face flight disruption \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

About 23,000 passengers travelling on 430 flights this summer could be disrupted by Aer Lingus<\/a> cancellations blamed on maintenance delays, it has emerged.<\/p>\n

The Irish airline said at the weekend it could cancel <\/a>up to 2 per cent of its flights this summer because of \u201cmandatory maintenance\u201d.<\/p>\n

Aer Lingus flies more than 12 million people a year, with the majority travelling during the summer season from April to October.<\/p>\n

Delays in maintenance to air frames, the body of the aircraft, will affect around 120 flights, with a further 30 resulting from other required checks, according to sources familiar with the situation. <\/p>\n

\"\"Has the fuel protest shown that the loudest lobby generally gets what they want?<\/p>\n

Cutting the number of flights on some routes, based on bookings, could result in a further 280 changes, that will hit about 15,000 customers.<\/p>\n

Airlines \u201cconsolidate\u201d flights in this way, where bookings show that passengers can be accommodated on fewer services than the number originally scheduled. <\/p>\n

The maintenance delays result from work carried out on items identified during checks and holdups arise from supply bottlenecks in the maintenance industry itself.<\/p>\n

Airlines take assumed times for the completion of the regular maintenance on aircraft into account when planning schedules.<\/p>\n

Aer Lingus stressed it was putting the \u201cvast majority\u201d of affected passengers on alternative flights to their destinations on the same day. Cancellations and other schedule changes on this scale are not unusual, industry sources say.<\/p>\n

The carrier\u2019s announcement is not related to fears for jet fuel supplies sparked by ongoing chaos in the Strait of Hormuz, closed by the US-Israeli conflict with Iran.<\/p>\n

However, industry figures concede this has made passengers more aware of cancellations or risks of disruption to holiday plans.<\/p>\n

European Union officials plan measures to \u201coptimise\u201d jet fuel distribution among member states and source alternative supplies while the Strait of Hormuz shipping remains blocked, news agency Bloomberg reported.<\/p>\n

The European Commission could announce on Wednesday that it will propose such measures next month.<\/p>\n

Europe imports about 40 per cent of its jet fuel, with half of that coming through Hormuz. Norway and the US account for other supplies.<\/p>\n

While Europe should have enough jet fuel to avoid shortages in April, pressure on supplies is set to intensify the longer the vital waterway stays closed.<\/p>\n

The Republic has 70 days of jet fuel supplies, according to Minister for Transport Darragh O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Irish Airline Pilots\u2019 Association (Ialpa) trade union said the carrier has been cancelling members\u2019 leave and regularly calls on off-duty crew to work.<\/p>\n

Ialpa president Mark Tighe maintained that the company has been unable to grant pilots all their contracted leave.<\/p>\n

Aer Lingus has also cancelled leave normally given to Ialpa officers to carry out trade union duties. The issue over union-related leave has been resolved, it is understood. Airlines regularly call in off-duty pilots for crewing or training purposes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"About 23,000 passengers travelling on 430 flights this summer could be disrupted by Aer Lingus cancellations blamed on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[601,72,61,60,150432],"class_list":{"0":"post-409593","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-aer-lingus","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-israel-iran-conflict"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}