# Trying to make a complaint to Aer Lingus....they are having a laugh.



## Laramie

I had a complaint about a recent flight experience with Aer Lingus. You are asked to complete an online form with your personal details, your flight details and the nature of your complaint.

If you are lucky you might get a response within 2 to 3 weeks. 

You get a "do not reply" email sent to you. You are allocated a reference number. If you want to respond you are then directed to a link. When you click on this link you are directed to yet another online form, identical to the one you originally completed. You cannot just pass a comment. You have to complete all your personal detail, flight details, yet again. Even though you have already given these and even though you have been allocated a reference number.

When you do this you are allocated, yet another reference number.

Each time you need to respond to the Aer Lingus email you have to complete this identical online form again and again and again.

This has been designed to frustrate people and Aer Lingus should stop this disgraceful contempt for their customers.


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## mathepac

Sounds less frustrating than the Lufthansa site, which demands details almost down to you shoe size and then refuses to submit the completed form without telling you why. Mind you, that's the English-language version; I'm sure the German one works fine.


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## Gervan

Laramie, been there, done that, eventually gave up. Aer Lingus won. 
All they have to do to win is: nothing. 
In order to maybe succeed you have to keep pushing.


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## horusd

I think the difficulty in making a complaint is perhaps deliberate.  Only the determined will succeed, or not, as the case may be!


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## seamless

I've been there and done that too... and I won because I took them to the small claims court. That got their attention really fast.


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## Páid

If you don't mind sharing, what was the issue?


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## Grizzly

You only have to log on to their Facebook page to see the list of daily complaints made by travellers. Yes, problems will happen, but a company should have a proper system of dealing with complaints and in a timely manner, supported by caring staff. Putting customers through the above ordeal is for one reason only........make them go away.


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## Jumpstartdublin

Is that not enough to not fly with them in future


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## Leper

I have always found Aer Lingus to be a good company.  No company can boast that their Customer Service is 100% perfect.  Having worked in Customer Service (although 20 years ago) I can say there are two sides to every story.  I could write a series of books regarding Customer Complaints both in favour of the customer and the company (or against if you wish).

We don't know the nature of the complaint here, other than difficulty with the on-line complaint forms. If Laramie wishes to share what actually happened, perhaps we can adjudicate here even without the evidence of Aer Lingus. Failing that we just have his word that something might have gone wrong, nothing else.


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## Laramie

Leper said:


> We don't know the nature of the complaint here, other than difficulty with the on-line complaint forms. If Laramie wishes to share what actually happened, perhaps we can adjudicate here even without the evidence of Aer Lingus. Failing that we just have his word that something might have gone wrong, nothing else.



For the moment my complaint is about the way Aer Lingus handles complaints. The delays, not answering specific questions, not being able to respond via email when they contact me. Making me fill in an online form every time I need to respond. It doesn't matter what the complaint is, everyone is made go through this process.


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## Leper

Let's keep the ball on the ground here.  The main issue is your complaint and sub-issue on the way you are or are not being kept informed or answered.

If we know what the main issue is perhaps we can inform or even offer advice. People in Customer Service receive complaints (that's their job). Then they seperate the whinging from genuine complaints.  Then they should reply.

Ireland is top-heavy with My-Flight-Bought-Coffee-was-not-hot-enough-I-want-a-free-flight-to-Chicago people. With respect, you have supplied no information regarding what your complaint is about and until you do so you might be wasting our time. I cannot see any reason why you cannot supply the details.


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## Gordon Gekko

Laramie said:


> For the moment my complaint is about the way Aer Lingus handles complaints. The delays, not answering specific questions, not being able to respond via email when they contact me. Making me fill in an online form every time I need to respond. It doesn't matter what the complaint is, everyone is made go through this process.



It does matter. If, for example, your complaint and the bulk of complaints are utterly frivolous, there's logic in having a process which keeps the complainant at arm's length. And in any event, what you describe (i.e. filling in some information) doesn't sound particularly onerous.


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## Laramie

Leper said:


> If we know what the main issue is perhaps we can inform or even offer advice


The main issue is how Aer Lingus deal with complaints, it is not a sub issue as you seem to insist. I don't know why you cannot accept that this is my complaint. Not anything else.
Why should a person who has been allocated a reference number have to again submit all their details, each and every time they want to respond to an email from Aer Lingus.

https://www.aerlingus.com/support/customer-relations/

This is the form that has to be completed each and every time.


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## Leper

I looked at the Aer Lingus complaint form.  It looks perfectly reasonable and in order to me and simple to complete.  With respect, I cannot see what you are complaining about other than complaining. Still we do not know when you made your complaint or even what the complaint was about.  Then we do not know how long you waited before you sent in your "reminders." We have no evidence that Aer Lingus fell down on the job other than your word.

We don't have all of the story, even from you and we have nothing from Aer Lingus.  Aer Lingus are not going to respond on this forum. Sorry Laramie, with the paucity of information supplied by you, I have to come down in favour of Aer Lingus.


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## thedaddyman

The OP's issue to me does not seem to be the original form, it is the fact that once the form is submitted you have no effective way of following up on your query aside from resubmitting your query from scratch a 2nd, 3rd and 4th time. That to me, as someone who deals with customer complaints on a daily basis is ineffective, inefficient and frustrating.  Companies should not be hiding from complaints, they should embrace them as valid feedback from their customers.


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## T McGibney

A few years ago, I filed a serious customer service complaint with Aer Lingus after they illegally denied my children boarding on a holiday flight. They stonewalled us for months until I thought of contacting the Aviation Regulator's office http://www.aviationreg.ie/  who took up our case and forced Aer Lingus to pay us compensation of €1,000 plus a refund of our (expensive) ticket costs.

My only conclusion from the affair is that Aer Lingus' customer service is pretty much non-existent.


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## Waver

I had what I thought was a serious issue with Aer Lingus.

I had bought flights and prebooked  seats months in advance for a family of 2 adults and 4 children travelling transatlantic. One of the children had special needs. Before the flight they reallocated the entire parties seats so that no one was sitting beside anyone else. I spend days phoning, emailing, facebooking and tweeting to try to resolve the issue with no success. They said to rely on others swapping seats after boarding which was not very helpful.

I took a guess at the email address of the CEO and everything was sorted within an hour.


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## Leo

thedaddyman said:


> The OP's issue to me does not seem to be the original form, it is the fact that once the form is submitted you have no effective way of following up on your query aside from resubmitting your query from scratch a 2nd, 3rd and 4th time. That to me, as someone who deals with customer complaints on a daily basis is ineffective, inefficient and frustrating.  Companies should not be hiding from complaints, they should embrace them as valid feedback from their customers.



Yeah, that's it exactly. I had reason to use it a couple of years back over an over-charging issue. You submit the form and get a automatic response saying you're in a queue and they'll respond 'as soon as possible'. They direct you back to the very same form if you wish to contact them again relating to the same issue, but that only creates a new support case. 

There is no one you can phone to escalate an issue, phoning the main numbers will only have you told to submit another case via the same form. 

In my case it was 12 weeks before they responded to my original query.


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## Laramie

Leper said:


> I looked at the Aer Lingus complaint form. It looks perfectly reasonable and in order to me and simple to complete. With respect, I cannot see what you are complaining about other than complaining. Still we do not know when you made your complaint or even what the complaint was about.


Leper, you still don't get it do you?  My original complaint to Aer Lingus is not the issue and it is none of your business. I am not looking for advice on my original complaint. You seem incapable of understanding this.

My complaint is about how they deal with customer complaints. You say you have looked at the complaint form and it is perfectly reasonable. Yes it is. Except, when you get a response. The response to you comes by way of email. Great, except you cannot reply to this email. Why not?

You then have to go back to a brand new complaint form and start from scratch all over again. You input your name and address, telephone numbers. details of other people travelling with you. The dates and times of your flights. You quote a reference number. All this just to reply to the email that they just sent you.

If you get another response from them, they allocate you yet another reference number.

If you need to respond to them again. You have to open up yet another new complaint response form and again input your name and address, telephone numbers, details of other people travelling with you, times and dates of travel etc ....On and on it goes.

Do you now understand what my complaint is about?


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## Gordon Gekko

I don't believe that your complaint about the process is reasonable. Having to fill in the form each time doesn't seem particularly onerous to me. How long does it take, 60 seconds? I'm also sceptical about your reluctance to disclose the nature of your underlying complaint. My suspicion is that Aer Lingus are inundated with complaints from crackpots about non-issues like the tea not being hot enough or there being insufficient storage above their seat. As a result, the process has been designed like this. Your reluctance to disclose the nature of your complaint does not help your argument.


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## Laramie

thedaddyman said:


> The OP's issue to me does not seem to be the original form, it is the fact that once the form is submitted you have no effective way of following up on your query aside from resubmitting your query from scratch a 2nd, 3rd and 4th time. That to me, as someone who deals with customer complaints on a daily basis is ineffective, inefficient and frustrating.  Companies should not be hiding from complaints, they should embrace them as valid feedback from their customers.



Thank you daddyman and Leo for your posts. I was beginning to think I was going mad. At least you understand what I am saying. We are now about to complete this form for the 3rd time in order to respond to their latest email which was only a one liner and didn't adequately respond to my issue raised.

It seems that I could be subjected to a series of one liner, fob off emails, forcing me each time to complete yet another form....until I get fed up and go away.


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## Gervan

Gordon Gekko said:


> I don't believe that your complaint about the process is reasonable. Having to fill in the form each time doesn't seem particularly onerous to me. How long does it take, 60 seconds?



Laramie, having been through this myself and eventually given up I DO understand and am totally in agreement with you.
The issue is NOT the time taken to fill out the form, be it once, twice or thrice, it is that this does not resolve the complaint. The response email from Aer Lingus merely gives a reference number, not a solution, or even a summary of the issue. Nothing further came to me, in the following weeks, and I tried again, with the same (non) results. 
I had phoned and spoken to a pleasant lady who said the refund of my fees, for a flight not taken, would be processed back on to my credit card. The fees were not refunded, so phoning obviously doesn't work either.


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## Tintagel

Gordon Gekko said:


> Your reluctance to disclose the nature of your complaint does not help your argument.


The OP is making a complaint about the complaints process. If he discloses his original complaint then the thread will go off in a completely different direction.


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## Gordon Gekko

Tintagel said:


> The OP is making a complaint about the complaints process. If he discloses his original complaint then the thread will go off in a completely different direction.



In my view, the nature of the complaint is relevant. But in any event, I don't believe that the process is particularly onerous. You input some data which you have to hand, and if you want to correspond again, you do it again. I'm not an apologist for airlines, but I suspect that the process is designed in this manner because of the sheer number of tenuous complaints.


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## odyssey06

Gordon Gekko said:


> In my view, the nature of the complaint is relevant. But in any event, I don't believe that the process is particularly onerous. You input some data which you have to hand, and if you want to correspond again, you do it again. I'm not an apologist for airlines, but I suspect that the process is designed in this manner because of the sheer number of tenuous complaints.



I could not disagree more with this. Clearly the process is blocking legitimate complaints which the airline should not be doing. It is a faulty process.
Do you accept that?
Honestly there is so much evidence here indicating that it's has caused people not to pursue legitimate claims, or have those legitimate claims followed up on, that any reasonable person would accept that.
Every customer facing organisation has to deal with tenuous complaints. It does not give them any right to use this as justification for dodging legitimate ones, or lumping more stress onto those with legitimate complaints.
The only acceptable impact is that it impedes the progress of processing the complaints, but the complaint process itself should be transparent.
The complaints process we see here is that of an organisation with something to hide.

We don't know if the OP's complaint is legit or not, but that's beside the point.
What's not legit is how Aer Lingus are going about dealing with it. The complaint, for all someone knows, has gone into a black hole queue that will never be dealt with. That is not correspondence. That is not an acceptable complaints handling process.


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## Gordon Gekko

Fair enough, I just happen to disagree. If I had an issue with AL, I would be fine with the process as it is.

How does the process block legitimate claims?

If I have an issue, I fill out an automated form. What exactly do people want?


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## Bronco Lane

Leper said:


> Ireland is top-heavy with My-Flight-Bought-Coffee-was-not-hot-enough-I-want-a-free-flight-to-Chicago people





Gordon Gekko said:


> My suspicion is that Aer Lingus are inundated with complaints from crackpots about non-issues like the tea not being hot enough or there being insufficient storage above their seat.



Nobody knows what type of complaints are made to Aer Lingus so I don't know where Leper and Gordon Gekko are getting this information.
If you take a look at their Facebook page the complaints seem very genuine and those posting them have tried the normal complaints route and are not getting any response.
Aer Lingus should stop this deliberate obfuscation and forcing their customers to complete the same forms over and over.


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## Leo

Gordon Gekko said:


> Fair enough, I just happen to disagree. If I had an issue with AL, I would be fine with the process as it is.
> 
> How does the process block legitimate claims?
> 
> If I have an issue, I fill out an automated form. What exactly do people want?



If you'd been overcharged a significant amount of money would you be happy with no feedback or response to your query for three months?


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## Gordon Gekko

Leo said:


> If you'd been overcharged a significant amount of money would you be happy with no feedback or response to your query for three months?



Where was three months mentioned and how might one be overcharged?

Thanks.


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## Grizzly

Gordon Gekko said:


> Where was three months mentioned and how might one be overcharged?


It doesn't matter how a person might be overcharged, that is not the point. Having to wait 3 months with no feedback or response to a complaint is the point. You just don't want to believe that people have legitimate complaints....do you?

https://www.facebook.com/aerlingus


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## Leo

I mentioned the three months as the period I had to wait for an initial response to them over-charging me in my earlier post. Took another couple of weeks to get the refund sorted as they wouldn't process without me providing copies of the receipt and tickets which luckily I still had.


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## Grizzly

Gordon Gekko said:


> I don't believe that your complaint about the process is reasonable. Having to fill in the form each time doesn't seem particularly onerous to me. How long does it take, 60 seconds?


If a reference number is given after the initial complaint is made then all that should be required is for the person to quote that reference number in their response.


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## Leo

Grizzly said:


> If a reference number is given after the initial complaint is made then all that should be required is for the person to quote that reference number in their response.



If you do try to follow up, they automatically issue a new reference number. That said, trying to follow up is futile, you may as well just wait the weeks or months it takes them to get around to your original complaint.


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## thedaddyman

Grizzly said:


> If a reference number is given after the initial complaint is made then all that should be required is for the person to quote that reference number in their response.



And that's the OP's problem, the only way to follow up is by raising a new query which generates a new reference number


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## SoylentGreen

I reported an incident to one of the cabin staff recently as I was exiting the plane. When I returned from holiday, I followed up with Aer Lingus on one of these forms and asked them had the cabin crew member logged my complaint as I wanted to pursue the matter. They told me that they would not confirm if the cabin crew did or did not record the complaint. It appears that they do not want to co-operate at all with anybody.


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## Kimmagegirl

I had to complete one of these forms recently. Only after I had sent it did I realise that I did not have a copy of the correspondence that I had sent. At least if you can send or reply to a standard email you can have a copy of your timeline of correspondence at your fingertips.


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## shootingstar

Do you try calling their customer service line and actually discuss your issue with someone there?


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## Leo

shootingstar said:


> Do you try calling their customer service line and actually discuss your issue with someone there?



I did that for my complaint only be to told that I had to log the issue via the website, and that they don't do phone support any more.


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## Laramie

Update. Well in the end I contacted Aer Lingus approximately 7 times through their online form. Having to complete all my details each and every time. Eventually I got the matter settled with a credit toward future flights to settle my complaint. Not exactly what I wanted.


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## Purple

Due to their dire customer service and the fact that they do not give points on their regional flights I have a policy of not using them unless there is no other option. I am a frequent flyer; I take between 40 and 100 flights a year. Aer Lingus are my least favourite airline. I know many other frequent flyers who are of the same opinion.


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## Leper

Purple said:


> Due to their dire customer service and the fact that they do not give points on their regional flights I have a policy of not using them unless there is no other option. I am a frequent flyer; I take between 40 and 100 flights a year. Aer Lingus are my least favourite airline. I know many other frequent flyers who are of the same opinion.



How very unpatriotic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1


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## IsleOfMan

These are advertising that they are the new 4 star airline. Yet if you log on to their Facebook page there are constant complaints of bad service.


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## Leper

IsleOfMan said:


> These are advertising that they are the new 4 star airline. Yet if you log on to their Facebook page there are constant complaints of bad service.



Of course you are right IOM, but Ireland is turning into a nation of incessant moaners about relatively small matters while more serious issues are largely ignored.  Ryanair for years got away with not dealing with more serious complaints until suddenly Saint Michael smelled the coffee when he thought that the share price could be improved by just listening. And now we all think that he is Mr Wonderful and suddenly we must forget about the goddawful way he treated his customers for years. We don't know the extent of the real complaints here and as usual we are complaining about the lesser subject.


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## Laramie

Leper said:


> We don't know the extent of the real complaints here and as usual we are complaining about the lesser subject.


I see you still don't get it Leper.  You seem fixated on the reason I was making a complaint to Aer Lingus rather than my actual complaint, which was the way Aer Lingus handled my complaint. You refer to the "lesser subject". There was no lesser subject.

It took about 6 weeks and 7 contacts made through their online system before the matter was resolved. 

I am absolutely certain that they wanted me to go away. I ended up posting on their Facebook page in order to get their attention and to deal with the matter. It worked.

Their Facebook page is open to all. When you send an email, it is private so they can fob you off.


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## Kimmagegirl

http://www.skytraxresearch.com/

I see that Aer Lingus are promoting this award. I wonder if it is a bit like the Q Mark award that companies were tripping over each other to have on their products back in the day. Or the 2, 3, 4 and 5 star Bed & Breakfast award.

I suppose that Aer lingus will not be happy with their 4 star award and will be striving for the 5 stars next.


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## Purple

Leper said:


> How very unpatriotic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1


I use the Irish airline; Ryan Air. Aer Lingus are a UK airline. I try to buy Irish when I can.
They do what Aer Lingus do only better and have no pretensions about being anything other than a low budget airline.


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## Purple

Kimmagegirl said:


> http://www.skytraxresearch.com/
> 
> I see that Aer Lingus are promoting this award. I wonder if it is a bit like the Q Mark award that companies were tripping over each other to have on their products back in the day. Or the 2, 3, 4 and 5 star Bed & Breakfast award.
> 
> I suppose that Aer lingus will not be happy with their 4 star award and will be striving for the 5 stars next.


Ah the Q Mark; meaningless and an utter waste of time. Yes, good analogy.


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## Gordon Gekko

It's a bit unscientific to cite complaints on a Facebook page as a sign of issues at Aer Lingus.

If you want a laugh sometime, read the "Terrible" review on Tripadvisor for somewhere good that you've visited. They tend to say more about the reviewer than the destination.


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## Purple

Gordon Gekko said:


> It's a bit unscientific to cite complaints on a Facebook page as a sign of issues at Aer Lingus.


I agree. I just go with personal experience based on over 300 flights with them over the last 5 years.


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## Gordon Gekko

Just to give an alternative view, my circa 100 flights over the same period have been super.


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## Leper

Laramie said:


> I see you still don't get it Leper.  You seem fixated on the reason I was making a complaint to Aer Lingus rather than my actual complaint, which was the way Aer Lingus handled my complaint. You refer to the "lesser subject". There was no lesser subject.
> 
> It took about 6 weeks and 7 contacts made through their online system before the matter was resolved.
> 
> I am absolutely certain that they wanted me to go away. I ended up posting on their Facebook page in order to get their attention and to deal with the matter. It worked.
> 
> Their Facebook page is open to all. When you send an email, it is private so they can fob you off.



No Laramie, I did not have your dealings with Aer Lingus in mind for my recent post - sorry, if I gave that impression.  I was thinking of the greater picture in which many Irish seem to complain on relatively small matters while more serious things which we should complain about go without a word. Furthermore, we as complainants have lost patience and we think we should have a resolution to our gripes within hours. Such is the way we have become.


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## Leo

Leper said:


> I was thinking of the greater picture in which many Irish seem to complain on relatively small matters...



Then start your own thread, please stop hijacking this one


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## Tintagel

Gordon Gekko said:


> If you want a laugh sometime, read the "Terrible" review on Tripadvisor for somewhere good that you've visited. They tend to say more about the reviewer than the destination.


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## Leper

Leo said:


> Then start your own thread, please stop hijacking this one



How Ya! Leo. If I had a worthwhile complaint against any company/person in Ireland, I would contact them directly.  I wouldn't be on here moanin' about relatively minor issues.  However, thanks for your suggestion, but not this time.


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## Laramie

Leper. If you actually bothered to read the opening post you will see that this is exactly what I tried to do. Has it sunk in yet?

I tried to contact them directly.

My complaint was about the way they were handling their "direct" complaints. 

However you were fixated on the reason I was making a complaint in the first place.

If I had told you this reason then the thread would have gone off in a completely different direction.


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## Gordon Gekko

Laramie said:


> However you were fixated on the reason I was making a complaint in the first place.
> 
> If I had told you this reason then the thread would have gone off in a completely different direction.



As an observer, and reading between the lines, your reluctance to disclose the nature of your complaint implies to me that it is frivolous in nature.

In my view, the complaints procedure is structured the way it is because of the sheer volume of cranks complaining about nothing and giving out about trivial matters.

I'm not an apologist for Aer Lingus, but I have always found them fantastic to deal with. Several years ago, I was "denied boarding" when a stewardess fell ill and the ratios didn't work. I got my €400 compensation after a few weeks without the necessity of ringing them every five minutes or ranting and raving about a basic online form.


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## Laramie

Like Leper you still haven't grasped what the thread is about. It's about the difficulties in making a complaint to Aer Lingus.

Several years ago, when you made your complaint, Aer Lingus did not have this online complaint form as it is, in it's format today.

My complaint, unlike yours was not resolved in a few weeks. I wasn't ringing them every 5 minutes. I would have liked to be able to ring them, instead I was directed to their new online complaint form.

That's where the problem is.

Incidentally it was not a frivolous complaint. They paid me compensation in the end plus a medical bill.


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## Seagull

Gordon Gekko said:


> As an observer, and reading between the lines, your reluctance to disclose the nature of your complaint implies to me that it is frivolous in nature.


Or personal, or still under review, or waiting for a court case. As well as completely irrelevant to the issue being discussed.


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## Leo

Let's keep this on topic of the current AL complaints procedures. Speculating about the nature of the OP's complaint here is off-topic. 



Gordon Gekko said:


> Several years ago, I was "denied boarding" when a stewardess fell ill and the ratios didn't work. I got my €400 compensation after a few weeks without the necessity of ringing them every five minutes or ranting and raving about a basic online form.



Were you able to speak to someone about your issue at that time?


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## Gordon Gekko

No, I wrote to them.

Speculating about the specific issue may be off-topic, but the seriousness of the issue is absolutely relevant. Why? Because the vast majority of complaints are likely to be frivolous. The process is designed to deal with ALL complaints. And the complaint here seems to be around the "difficulty" and "hassle" of having to put your details on an online form every time you engage with the process. What's wrong with writing to them (i.e. filling in the online form) and then leaving them to deal with it?


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## IsleOfMan

Gordon Gekko said:


> Because the vast majority of complaints are likely to be frivolous.



How do you know this? 

I am not sure what you mean when you say that the "ratios didn't work" when you were denied boarding in your own case. Was this a frivolous complaint or was this a situation where you were automatically entitled to a refund anyway? 

Why did you have to write to them? If you were denied boarding then they should be contacting you. They had all your details.

If you are automatically entitled to a refund it will come out in due course. So maybe filling in the online form once is sufficient . How long should a person be made to wait in this case incidentally?

If it is not a cut and dry situation then you might want to follow up to see what is happening. Why should you have to input your flight details. name & address, details of other passengers travelling again and again and again. Once should be enough. One reference number should be enough. Instead they give you a different reference number each time.


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## Gordon Gekko

My understanding is that there should be X number of cabin crew to cover Y number of passengers.

They flew me home later that day and advised me to write in to claim the €400 compensation and for any expenses (e.g. lunch etc). Some time later, the money arrived. No hassle.

Had I chosen to follow up in the interim, having to submit my details again (which is similar to when the always ask for your name, booking reference, and email over the phone) would hardly be the end of the world.

My fear is that the type of person who has an issue with taking 30 seconds to populate a couple of information fields is the same type of person who's clogging up the system with complaints about them running out of cooked breakfasts.


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## Leo

Gordon Gekko said:


> No, I wrote to them.
> 
> Speculating about the specific issue may be off-topic, but the seriousness of the issue is absolutely relevant. Why? Because the vast majority of complaints are likely to be frivolous. The process is designed to deal with ALL complaints. And the complaint here seems to be around the "difficulty" and "hassle" of having to put your details on an online form every time you engage with the process. What's wrong with writing to them (i.e. filling in the online form) and then leaving them to deal with it?




Have you read the thread? The difficulty isn't with the form, there's nothing much wrong with that bar the problems people without access to computers face. The issue is the lack of follow up or feedback, or any opportunity to query the status of a complaint. 

The seriousness should have no bearing on the complaints mechanism. If it's a frivolous complain it should be closed in a reasonable time frame. What is there to gain for either party in entertaining such complaints for months?

Would you have been happy to wait 3 months for your refund like I had to without any acknowledgment or feedback in the meantime?


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## Leper

Leo, That's where you are wrong. Queries take time to be answered.  Customer Service in any company doesn't just give refunds on demand, the reason(s) to justify refunds must be investigated. We don't know of the complaint on this subject other than it is a complaint about the complaint's procedure (and fair enough!).

Of course the gravity of a complaint has a bearing on the subject.  Unfortunately, frivolous complaints seem to get much more "air-time" on the likes of fora such as this while more grevious complaints get a back-seat.

Nobody is happy to wait 3 months for a resolution to anything.  But, such is the nature of the beast that there are delays because of minor complaints from inveterate moaners who will moan about anything and at any time.

If we were to take your reasoning murder trials would be settled within ten minutes of the apprehension of the suspect.  Would you be happy by this.  Normal investigations into murder situations take quite much time.  Would you be happy to be convicted within 3 months of the deed?


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## Gordon Gekko

Leo said:


> Have you read the thread? The difficulty isn't with the form, there's nothing much wrong with that bar the problems people without access to computers face. The issue is the lack of follow up or feedback, or any opportunity to query the status of a complaint.
> 
> The seriousness should have no bearing on the complaints mechanism. If it's a frivolous complain it should be closed in a reasonable time frame. What is there to gain for either party in entertaining such complaints for months?
> 
> Would you have been happy to wait 3 months for your refund like I had to without any acknowledgment or feedback in the meantime?



Clearly you have not read the thread...the issue is with having to spend 30 seconds inputting information.

I would have no issue waiting three months for my refund. I wrote to Aer Lingus and it was dealt with. I didn't feel the need to write to them again, but had I done so, I would not have had an issue with the obvious requirement to include the relevant details in the second letter.

You seem to be missing my point (and Leper's), which is essentially that frivolous complaints make the system as time consuming as it is. Our ancillary point is around the suspicion that the OP's complaint is frivolous. Despite numerous requests, he/she refuses to divulge its nature, which leads me to believe that it's about them not serving skinny lattes or something similar rather than some customer service atrocity.


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## Leo

Gordon Gekko said:


> Clearly you have not read the thread...the issue is with having to spend 30 seconds inputting information.



Where did the OP ever say the issue was spending 30 seconds filling in a form?

The OP certainly seemed to agree that my issue with the system resonated with their own. 




Gordon Gekko said:


> You seem to be missing my point (and Leper's), which is essentially that frivolous complaints make the system as time consuming as it is.



It's not that I'm missing the point, it's that the issue of such complaints isn't what the OP asked about. No doubt there are a lot of frivolous complaints, any consumer complaints system will receive a large volume of such complaints. Most companies close them off quickly and efficiently, indeed most companies would consider taking anything like 3 months to send an initial response even to a frivolous complaint pretty poor customer service.


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## Gordon Gekko

Laramie said:


> You are asked to complete an online form with your personal details, your flight details and the nature of your complaint.
> 
> If you are lucky you might get a response within 2 to 3 weeks.
> 
> You have to complete all your personal detail, flight details, yet again.
> 
> Each time you need to respond to the Aer Lingus email you have to complete this identical online form again and again and again



Leo, the issue IS around the "hassle" of having to fill in a few details...see above.

Also, 2/3 weeks was mentioned, not 3 months.


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## Leo

Gordon Gekko said:


> Leo, the issue IS around the "hassle" of having to fill in a few details...see above.



It really isn't, as the OP has clarified this a number of times in subsequent posts, also agreeing with posts by myself and thedaddyman stating the issue wasn't with the form. They even said that they consider the form is 'perfectly reasonable', and that 



Laramie said:


> My complaint is about how they deal with customer complaints.



Then when Leper brought up the form again, the OP responded with:



			
				Laramie said:
			
		

> Leper, you still don't get it do you?






Gordon Gekko said:


> Also, 2/3 weeks was mentioned, not 3 months.



3 months was the period I had to wait for my complaint to be handled and refund issued. All clearly stated a number of times in the thread.


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## Kimmagegirl

Gordon Gekko said:


> Clearly you have not read the thread...the issue is with having to spend 30 seconds inputting information.



No it's not. It's about having to input the same information over and over every time you want to communicate with Aer Lingus. Once should be enough. One reference number should be enough. 

You should be able to "reply" to an email from them.


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## Gordon Gekko

Kimmagegirl said:


> No it's not. It's about having to input the same information over and over every time you want to communicate with Aer Lingus. Once should be enough. One reference number should be enough.
> 
> You should be able to "reply" to an email from them.



So the issue is with the form...


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## Leper

Kimmagegirl said:


> No it's not. It's about having to input the same information over and over every time you want to communicate with Aer Lingus. Once should be enough. One reference number should be enough.
> 
> You should be able to "reply" to an email from them.



Our point exactly KG.  There is only need to fill in the form once. Completing the form with the same complaint again and again is just delaying issues and clogging up the system. [The word "PUERILE" comes to mind.

All you got to do about the ability of Irish people complaining about something is read some of the posts here on this thread.  Complaining is like the first rule of a skilled carpenter:- Measure Twice, Cut Once. From my years working in Customer Service for a major firm in Ireland, I can categorically say the vast amount of complaints were badly presented.


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## Kimmagegirl

Leper said:


> Completing the form with the same complaint again and again is just delaying issues and clogging up the system. [The word "PUERILE" comes to mind.



That's not what the OP is talking about. If a person needs to ask a question or respond to a question they are required to complete every section of the form again. Their name & address, their flight details, who travelled, old reference number, dates etc 

They are not copying and pasting their original complaint over and over like you are saying.

How many times do Aer Lingus need this information? Is once not enough?


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## Gordon Gekko

The same people who are giving out about having to spend  a few seconds inputting some data would be giving out about data protection if Aer Lingus acted purely on the basis of someone citing a reference number.

If you want to know why it takes weeks to get a resolution and why there's no phoneline, just read this thread or Google "airline complaints". 

The public, in aggregate, are not reasonable.


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## T McGibney

The problem for Aer Lingus is that every other major corporate customer service facility seems to operate on a reference number-based system, with no compromise on data security. 

When I needed assistance from Aer Lingus customer service back in 2013, it took 7 months for them to address my complaint.


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## Leo

Gordon Gekko said:


> The same people who are giving out about having to spend  a few seconds inputting some data would be giving out about data protection if Aer Lingus acted purely on the basis of someone citing a reference number.



Again, posted multiple times that the few seconds filling in the form isn't an issue. The OP has clearly stated this, as have I in relation to my complaint.

Data protection is a complete red-herring. It AL wanted to, they could do like many other organisations do and use multi-factor auth to bring the user to a page containing their already submitted details when supplemental information is requested rather than have them submit a completely new issue.


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## Leo

Leper said:


> Our point exactly KG.  There is only need to fill in the form once. Completing the form with the same complaint again and again is just delaying issues and clogging up the system.



Did you even read the OP's contributions? They were asked for supplemental information. To submit it, they had to fill in all the complaint details again because the act of submitting supplemental information creates a new case in the AL system with no link back to the original ticket submitted.


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## Purple

Those defending Aer Lingus here are on a hiding to nowhere.
They could use a reference number and they should let people know that their complaint has been received and is being looked at. That should happen within hours, not days or months.


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## Leper

Purple said:


> Those defending Aer Lingus here are on a hiding to nowhere.
> They could use a reference number and they should let people know that their complaint has been received and is being looked at. That should happen within hours, not days or months.



They don't, it's no big deal, Get over it !!!!!


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## Purple

Leper said:


> They don't, it's no big deal, Get over it !!!!!


It's not in a global context but in a discussion about customer service and the relative quality of the service given by Aer Lingus it is relevant.
They have pretensions, delusions even, of being something other than a low cost airline but in reality within Europe they are like a not quite as good version of Ryan Air.


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## BOXtheFOX

Aer Lingus starring on Liveline now.


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## Tintagel

On Aer Lingus Facebook today.  Is Aer Lingus trying to force people to pre-book seats/

"Your overbooking of flights is atrocious. . We where booked on flight at 930pm from malaga to dublin to be told we couldn't fly.. as we hadn't pre booked seats we where put on standby. . We received no help on other end and no aer lingus representitive to be found.. we suffered a great deal of stress and upset.. we booked with aer lingus as it is our airline of choice,we will think very carefully about this in the future."


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## Laramie

This is the response from Aer Lingus to a customer who has a complaint logged on their Facebook page today. It appears that their response time to complaints is now taking up to 60 days. Is this because they are swamped with complaints or are they seriously understaffed?  The airline is making good profits.

"Hi Minul, we apologise for the delay to your bag on your recent trip. We see that your case is logged however due to current delays it can take up to 60 days for a response."


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## Leo

That's down from ~90 days at the time of my complaint in 2014...


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## thedaddyman

I don't have a link to it but Conor Pope covered this in the Irish Times yesterday.


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## Laramie

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/cons...and-the-customer-loses-his-patience-1.2769644


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## horse7

I am waiting since October for a response from aerlingus,all I have is a case number, is this a record?


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## Leper

horse7 said:


> I am waiting since October for a response from aerlingus,all I have is a case number, is this a record?


Nay Horse7 or should I say "neigh"?


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