Fare's Fair For Aer Lingus Customers

Budget airlines beware, Irish airline Aer Lingus has beaten them all - though its £4 trans-Atlantic flights look unlikely to be repeated in the future.

Under some pressure, they agreed today to honour £4 flights to the USA under pressure at it mistakenly sold the seats to about 100 customers on its website.

Originally, the company refused to accept the bookings on business class flights, normally valued at £1,433 each way, because it was a computer error.

Now, airline bosses said they would give customers who booked the seats the chance of flying economy class at the price advertised.

An Aer Lingus spokeswoman apologised for the "technical error" and the airline is contacting those affected.

"Following a full investigation of the booking error undertaken yesterday evening by the company, it appears that some customers may have genuinely believed that they were making a booking in economy class," she said.

"It is regrettable that this technical error occurred and Aer Lingus recognises and accepts that customers were upset and inconvenienced."

The 90 minute glitch on the booking website was estimated to have cost the airline - part owned by the Irish government - about £790,000.

Earlier Noel Dempsey, Transport Minister, had encouraged the airline to rectify the mistake.

"They are a private company, we are a shareholder but we don't interfere in the day to day running of the company," he said.

"It has caused a great deal of controversy, they made a mistake and they should rectify the mistake." The Consumers' Association of Ireland had insisted binding contracts were made and that customers were due compensation.

(BMcC)