Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1698136907361.pdf (Ireland)
Aer Lingus Opening Statement to Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications Committee – 26th July 2022 Introduction Thank you for the opportunity to engage - once again - with the Transport and Communications committee.

At the outset I want to briefly refer to commentary which surrounded our inability to attend the Committee’s planned meeting for last week.

As Committee members are well aware Aer Lingus was invited to attend the planned meeting quite close to the date.
Unfortunately, and not surprisingly we already had commitments which we couldn’t change at short notice so we said we could attend on another date.

We were quite taken aback at some of the subsequent comments emanating from the Committee concerning what was described as our refusal to attend on the original date.

In my view we were being entirely reasonable, and I am very happy to be here today with the Committee.
This is Aer Lingus’s fifth time attending this Committee in respect of the challenges presented by the pandemic itself and now in relation to the operational challenges linked to the sector’s recovery.
We would like to put the disruptions that the aviation sector is currently experiencing in context: - Passenger experience has suffered across the aviation sector this summer and some - Aer Lingus customers have had their travel impacted While Aer Lingus has had some cancellations, we had a flight completion rate of almost 100% in May and 98% in June.

The vast majority of our customers and their baggage were successfully delivered.
- Aer Lingus has operated one of the most robust schedules of any European network carrier.

For example, Aer Lingus planned to operate 8,353 flights in June, and we operated 8,130 flights.

- Therefore, with a cancellation rate of 1.8% in June, Aer Lingus had far fewer cancellations as a proportion of our schedule than for example larger European network carriers like Lufthansa (-10%) and Air France (-7%) -KLM (-11%), or even EasyJet (-14%).
- Aer Lingus apologises to any customer who has had a less than satisfactory experience and we wish to assure them that we are doing everything possible to resolve the issues.
- We are incredibly frustrated with the operational disruptions this summer and our staff - are doing a remarkable job in difficult circumstances I would like to take the opportunity to publicly acknowledge and thank Aer Lingus staff for their ongoing efforts as we work through an extremely challenging summer dealing with many issues that are outside of our control Aer Lingus preparedness for summer 2022 The Aer Lingus summer 2022 schedule was launched in October 2021 and it was publicly available and on sale at that point.
Even post the Omicron wave, we reiterated our intention that the summer 2022 peak would be approximately 90% of our 2019 flying.

We planned for and were prepared for the return in passenger demand.

We built appropriate buffers into our plans in order to deal with a reasonable level of additional disruption.
We recruited staff on a timely basis, we made adjustments to the contracts offered to reflect market conditions and we have continued to recruit to maintain a pipeline of resources to support our operation in a very challenging operating environment across the network.

It is worth noting that Aer Lingus passenger numbers in June 2022 were 81% of 2019 levels whilst Aer Lingus staffing was at 91% of 2019 levels.
The additional staff in the system this year allows 10% additional buffer over and above a normalised year.

Our preparedness was however not matched by airports and ground handlers where there was a failure to adequately resource for summer 2022 operations.

If every airport and handling agent was as prepared as Aer Lingus we would not be facing the scale of challenges we currently face across our network.
Dublin Airport issues Turning briefly to the particular issues experienced at Dublin Airport - I will not cover the specifics of the security screening breakdown that occurred on 29th May.

Aer Lingus is aware that this was the subject of a separate standalone meeting of the Committee.

Aer Lingus acknowledges the improvements that have been made by Dublin Airport on the security screening problems.
Notwithstanding that, the advice to arrive at the airport 2.5 hours before departure for a short- haul flight and 3.5 hours before departure for a long-haul flight (with an extra hour if the passenger is checking-in a bag) remains problematic.

Frequently passengers checking-in or dropping a bag during our early morning departures are competing with passengers for later flights arriving early based on this advice.

This causes challenges for both airlines and passengers in terms of bag-drop and check-in.
Airport resourcing issues have also caused problems with airside bussing and services to Persons with Reduced Mobility (PRM), both leading to delays in the airport.

The Committee will also be aware of the problems with cleaning standards at the airport.

Further improvement is needed so that service standards are acceptable for customers and for airlines and we trust that work is underway to permanently address the issues.
Aer Lingus also acknowledges that the problems being experienced by Dublin Airport are not unique to Dublin –in fact, the issues at major European hub airports far outweigh the challenges at Dublin.

More generally, infrastructure deficits at Dublin Airport are impacting operations today and will become more critical in the future.

It is important that these deficits are addressed in a timely manner so that they don’t become an ongoing issue for the airport as passenger numbers grow.
Wider aviation system pressures Wider aviation system pressures impact Aer Lingus hugely because connecting traffic through our hub in Dublin Airport is core to our business.

The operating model of network carriers like Aer Lingus, with significant flows of transfer passengers and baggage, is inherently more complex than that of a point to point airline.

We operate to 9 out 10 of the European airports most impacted by these pressures.
The wider system pressures are typically as follows: - Under-resourcing at airports, ground handlers and third-party suppliers - Failure to plan adequately for the demand levels for air travel - Mandatory cancellations (at Amsterdam Schiphol and London Heathrow) - Security screening process breakdown - Baggage system failures (at Amsterdam Schiphol and London Heathrow) - Closure of airport terminals leading to congestion (for example at Paris, Charles de Gaulle) - Aircraft stand and gate availability problems - Industrial action causing disruption at many airports in Europe e.g.
Paris, Bordeaux, Lyons, Brussels, and French and Italian Air Traffic Control Increased absenteeism due to latest Covid wave - Combined these pressures are creating a unique set of challenges as airlines ramp up their operations following the disruption caused by Covid.

These wider system pressures create an extremely challenging environment and the issues are primarily outside of our control.
Reality of Operational challenges The reality is that the operational challenges make it impossible for Aer Lingus to deliver the experience that we would like for some of our customers.

For every disruption there are knock on effects to our operation.
These effects can include: - Check in queues at multiple airports build as passengers arrive early for security screening - Delays at security screening result in delays at boarding and departure - Delays in airport services to persons with reduced mobility result in delayed departures or delayed disembarkation of aircraft on arrival - Delays in bussing to and from aircraft result in delays at departure and arrivals - Flight delays impact aircraft stand availability for incoming aircraft, which causes knock-on delays - Delays create risks for connecting passengers and their bags - Air traffic control congestion adds further delays to the system By the end of day, the compounded impact of these disruptions can often result in: - Poor punctuality - Customers and their bags missing connecting flights - Delays causing crews to reach their duty hour limits or impacting their minimum rest requirements, both having knock-on impacts on the next day’s operations - Due to all of the above, flight cancellations are sometimes required Baggage issues Focussing on the baggage specific impacts of the wider aviation system pressures, it is clear that these have resulted in misdirected and delayed bags becoming a significant issue.
This is seen most frequently where bags are due to be transferred from another airline or its handling agent to Aer Lingus.

These therefore represent the bulk of bags being delayed or misdirected (c.60% of baggage issues).

Indeed, in most cases Aer Lingus never receives or touches these bags.

A further c.15% of baggage issues relate to incidents where a passenger makes their flight, but their bags don’t for the reasons outlined earlier.
The increased volume of baggage delays/ mis-directions results in increased baggage tracing demand.

Our team on the ground is continuing to work closely with all the relevant handling agents to retrieve delayed or misdirected baggage as quickly and efficiently as possible.

There was a peak of 1,800 open files associated with baggage in mid-June and this has now reduced to 1,200 open files.
Our baggage team are processing significant volumes of delayed / mis-directed bags daily, however the inflow of new issues continues at a high rate.

Support staff in Aer Lingus have been trained on baggage equipment to help the processing of this back-log.
Customer care As a consequence of everything I have outlined, our customer call centres are inundated with queries that relate to ticketing, baggage issues, cancellations and missed connections Over the last four weeks, the volume of calls to our call centres have increased massively versus 2019.

The agent time spent on each call has increased four-fold due to the complex nature of customer queries.

These are difficult to resolve as they are mainly driven by issues outside of our control.
There is therefore an unprecedented increase in demand on our call centres.

With this level of disruption, we are often unable to provide the level of customer support that we aspire to.

Aer Lingus Actions Aer Lingus apologises to any customer who has had a less than satisfactory experience and we wish to assure them that we are doing everything possible to resolve the issues.
I would like to take the opportunity to outline just some of the steps we are taking to manage and address the operational challenges.
Schedule - Aer Lingus has hired in aircraft and crew in order minimise cancellations in the event of significant disruption - We have extended our minimum connection times between flights for connecting passengers in order to minimise the damage caused by delays Baggage - We have increased resourcing, deployed new technology and adapted our processes to try to locate bags, match them with customers and accelerate delivery via third-party transport - We have contracted cargo operators to deliver bags to customers internationally - We have launched a ‘Report my bag’ facility on our website to bypass the need to physically report a baggage issue to an agent Customer care - A significant number of volunteers have been sourced from around the business to support the Operations team - We have increased our customer servicing agent capacity by 40% in response to the additional call demand.
- Continued recruitment to deal with disruption – in June we had 81% of 2019 passenger levels but 91% of 2019 staff levels Conclusion I trust the above gives members of the committee some indication of the challenges that Aer Lingus is facing in what is a very disrupted Summer for the industry and the steps we are actively taking in response to the challenges.

As I have already said, there are pressures across the wider aviation system and Dublin Airport is by no means the only airport at which they exist.
Despite the challenges, Aer Lingus is performing strongly in managing the issues that are within our control.

We are also doing everything possible to influence and address the many matters that are outside of our control.

I would like to repeat my thanks to Aer Lingus staff who are going above and beyond to help customers as they work through this very challenging summer.
To conclude, I would like to put the scale of the increase in passenger numbers in context: 2.8 million passengers travelled through Dublin Airport in June 2022 compared to a mere 300,000 in June 2021.

While that recovery in traffic has brought many challenges, it is critical to the wider Irish economy.

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