Re: Aer Lingus Email
I would ring Aer Lingus to confirm this. It probably is legitimate, and especially so if they have included your dates and booking references, but it could be someones effort at phishing - getting people to part with confidential information by pretending to be someone else. Unlikely if they actually are using an aerlingus.com email address, but possible.
If this is the way Aer Lingus are collecting confidential information (like passport numbers and expiry dates) then their IT auditors and compliance people should be woken up and told about it. They are asking people to send this information in clear-text through the internet and they don't provide (from the email above) a privacy policy indicating what they will or will not do with the information provided. Yes, they will pass it on to the US authorities (and you can't do much about it if you want to go there these days), but who else will they pass this information on to ?
At the very least they should provide a secure website where you can enter this information without risk of it being intercepted.
The more I think about it, the sillier it seems - if people send in free-form emails with information all over the place, someone is going to have to re-enter the information into whatever system they are using to record all the details. Much better to graball the information from a web site and stick it in the application directly.
z