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Taken 17 September 2006 from Dublin - DUB to Arrecife

If you only read the first line of this review, then take this advice: never fly with eirjet! They are a complete disgrace.

Flight eir208 was due to leave Dublin at 3pm, but did not actually depart until 7.45pm. To make things worse, the passengers were kept poorly informed, and even misinformed, about the situation. We were told the reason for the delay was that the crew had not turned up, then that one member of the crew had not turned up. When we finally boarded the plane, we were told that an eirjet plane had been damaged the previous day at Dublin airport, and this was the reason for the delay. When we landed in Arrecife the flight attendant made the usual apologies for the delays and she hoped it wouldn't happen again on the return journey "but couldn't guarantee it." That hardly inspires confidence!

The return journey was even worse. Flight eir209 due to fly out of Arrecife at 8pm on Sunday was cancelled due to a technical problem. It eventually departed at 10pm on Monday. An impressive 26 hour delay! Again there was no information available. The departure time came and went without anybody coming to inform us of any problems.

No reps from any of the travel companies made themselves available. The passengers, as a group, had to make our way back out of the departure lounge to find our reps and get some sort of answer. The official explanation was that a "foreign object" had damaged the engine on landing.

As if this was not bad enough, the flight was not officially cancelled until 11.30pm, so we were left in limbo for three and a half hours not knowing if we were flying out that night, or being put up in a hotel, or even sleeping in the airport.

In fairness, we were put up in the five star Gran Arrecife Hotel. We eventually arrived there at 1am, and we were by no means the last coach-load of passengers to get there.

This is an airline that appears to lack resources (four planes in total!), or any commitment to the customer. We were treated disgracefully at the airport during both journeys, and the poor reps from Sunway Travel, Onmi Travel etc were as let down by eirjet as we were. At no point during any of this did an eirjet representative make themselves available.

When we booked the holiday, we did not check who we were flying with. We never had to in the past. However, in the future I will always check, and I suggest that everybody should do the same. I will never ever fly with eirjet again.

**** Update ****

Having read the previous Eirjet review I must say that I am completely amazed by that person's reaction, and I feel I must reply to it. I note that this person was on holiday for two weeks and therefore missed the debacle of the 5 hour delay on the outbound flight. Otherwise they might not be so placid.

I agree that safety is the most important thing to worry about when operating an airline. However, I also believe that customer service has to rank up there too, and we were treated terribly.

I do not dispute any airline's decision to ground a plane over safety concerns, but some sort of contingency plan must be in place to ensure a minimum of disruption. Eirjet only operate four planes (it states this on their website) so when something goes wrong with one, they do not have the resources to offer any sort of backup, and it is the customer that suffers as a result.

This happened to us twice in the space of one week. A five hour delay flying out and a day late flying back into Dublin. Both due, we were told, to some sort of damage to an aircraft. Either we were just terribly unlucky, or this is happening on a regular basis. It seems from previous Eirjet reviews over the last two years that this is not down too bad luck, but is a regular occurrence.

On both journeys, we were told nothing about any delays until well after the scheduled flight time. I would not have minded as much if we had been told what was happening, but nobody came to inform us at all. This just proves to me how little regard Eirjet have for their customers. They must have been fully aware that the majority of people on that flight were the very same people who were stuck in Dublin airport the previous week for five hours, and should have been doing everything in their power to get us home on time. The very least I would have expected was an Eirjet rep at the airport to explain the situation. As it was, they couldn't even be bothered keeping the various holiday reps informed, who were just as in the dark as we were.

I'm glad that the previous reviewer could enjoy their extra day's holiday, but my husband and I cannot share their enthusiasm. Yes, we stayed in a five star hotel, and we did get three meals on the Monday (I'm refusing to count the reheated chicken legs that we got in the airport on Sunday night, as that was inedible) but that came at a price. Both my husband and I were due in work on Monday, and as a result of the delay, we both had to take an extra day holiday. It was either that or lose one day's pay. I would have preferred to use that day for something more enjoyable than sitting in a hotel lobby wondering if the flight was actually going to take off that night.

The plane did eventually leave on time on the Monday night, but one there was one final thing that angered both my husband and I: as we were coming in to land in Dublin airport, the flight attendant came over the intercom to apologise for the delay, but she was laughing while she said it. This was the final insult to weary travellers who had been delayed twice in a week, and further proof of the complete disregard that Eirjet has for it's customers.

We will never fly with Eirjet again. They ruined what would have otherwise been a fantastic holiday. I would thoroughly recommend visiting Lanzarote because it is a beautiful island, but I would also recommend that you double check who you are flying with, and avoid Eirjet.