Aerlingus Gets Lost in Translation

I like traveling with Aerlingus and I find them very reliable as well as friendly. But some things can’t just be let go…

Aerlingus’s customer service department must have forgotten that golden rule of communication which says the whole purpose of communicating is to get some feedback from those you are trying to communicate with… That is: if you try to communicate with other people in a way they will not be able to understand you, the whole effort is just useless.

A couple of weeks ago, my parents bought flight tickets to come and visit. The route: Santiago de Compostela – Dublin. The process was initially simple, as the Aerlingus website allows users in different countries to book flights in different languages.

But yesterday, my mum texts me URGING me to check an email she has just forwarded to me from Aerlingus. It is a simple Travel Advisory note from Aerlingus, trying to flog car rentals and other products – just in English!. Of course the note might as well have been written in Chinese for neither my mum nor my dad speak English. And I think: this is just wrong.

If you sell tickets to people in different countries, at least make the effort to use that same language you used to sell your tickets for any communication with your customers afterwards… pure manners really (not just customer service best practice).

So my mum is freaking out but I tell her everything is ok and nobody is to kick her out of that plain coming to Ireland on Saturday. She is such a pain sometimes but I must admit she is 100% right on this one.

I remember the last time they came she was totally annoyed because nobody on the plane back to Santiago (and that is not one single crew member) spoke even Spanish. And I say EVEN, because for most Galicians (including me), Spanish is their second language, not even their mother tongue.

Can you imagine getting on a plane from Dublin to … let’s say Moscow just for the craic… and discover all the crew members spoke just Russian? The world would be up in arms.

It just reminds me of a friend’s neighbour who went on holidays to rural Andalucía. When she came back she explained she had a ‘lovely’ time but was a bit upset as the locals ‘didn’t have any English’. As she put it: “they didn’t make any effort with the language”. Now, if she couldn’t be bothered, why should the locals?

Maybe it is an understandable attitude coming from an old lady, but surely Aerlingus should know better…