A group of students and teachers from Shimna Integrated School in County Down who were retuning from a trip to Berlin had their flight home cancelled while they were in the airport.
Teacher Luke McWatters, said that their 21:45 flight on Thursday was initially showing as delayed and then, more than two hours after the flight was initially due to take off, they were told it was cancelled.
“Trying to ring through to Aer Lingus I was on three different calls to three different agents who, every time I got to a certain way through said: ‘Because you’re a group we can’t do anything for you -you have to contact group Aer Lingus who don’t open until 9am’.”
Mr McWatters told the ’s Evening Extra programme that he felt they had been “left high and dry”, with no offer of accommodation or food.
He said the group slept on the airport floor.
Mr McWatters said they were offered an alternative flight on 1 July.
“At that stage we made the call to try other airlines and split ourselves up as a group,” he added.
Half of the group travelled to Edinburgh, while the other half caught a flight to Poland, with both groups booked on flights back to Ireland on Friday.
Mr McWatters said that the support for Aer Lingus had “fallen very short of what you would expect from a major airline dealing with children”.
The has contacted Aer Lingus for a response.
