Dempsey criticises lack of information

TRANSPORT Minister Noel Dempsey has criticised an unnamed airline – understood to be Aer Lingus – for providing insufficient information to passengers stranded by the travel crisis.

In the Dáil yesterday, Mr Dempsey confirmed his department had received complaints from passengers, but said they had all been about one airline. He also dropped a broad hint about which airline it was, without mentioning the carrier by name.

“I’ve only got complaints about one airline – and it wouldn’t be the one that we’d normally expect – in relation to lack of information and people not being able to get through and get information from the airline,” he said.

“I don’t think that the amount of information that is being made available (by), and contact from, the airline is sufficient at all,” he added.

He conceded, however, airlines generally were dealing with a huge volume of queries given the number of passengers stranded abroad.

He also acknowledged the effect of the crisis on the airlines, with estimated possible losses of €5m a day for Aer Lingus, €7m to €10m a day for Ryanair and €15m to €20m a day for British Airways.

He said if the EU opted to compensate airlines, the Government would fight for the Irish carriers to be included. But he firmly ruled out any prospect of the Government itself paying Irish airlines compensation.

“If the EU decide they’re going to offer compensation to airlines, we’ll certainly make a very strong case for Irish airlines,” Mr Dempsey said.

“But with the budgetary situation that we’re in, we don’t anticipate that we’ll be leading a charge to have states compensating airlines… we don’t have the money to do it and we can’t do it.”

Meanwhile, the Government only narrowly survived a vote yesterday because a number of TDs were stranded abroad. In the first vote after the Dáil’s two- week Easter recess, the Government won by 73 to 71. Ordinarily, it would have 84 votes to the opposition’s 78.