Flew Dublin to New York today and had one of the strangest airline interactions I’ve had in a while.
I live in NYC these days but was home in Ireland for a few days visiting family. It was a rough enough trip emotionally and I also had work waiting for me once onboard, so when I got to check-in I figured I’d see if there were any business class seats available for upgrade.
The check-in agent was genuinely lovely and checked for me. She said there were 8 open business class seats and the upgrade would cost €700 pending manager approval. I thought about it for a minute and decided to go for it.
Then things got weird.
She called the manager and came back saying they couldn’t process the upgrade because there were no business class meals left onboard.
Fair enough, except I genuinely did not care about the meal. I told her that directly. I just wanted the larger seat, some privacy, and the ability to work and maybe sleep a bit on the flight. I even told her I always bring my own sandwiches because Aer Lingus catering is fairly depressing these days anyway.
She called the manager back to explain I was still happy to pay for the upgrade despite no meal. A few minutes later she returned looking slightly embarrassed and explained that management still refused because they were concerned about “reputational damage.”
Apparently letting someone sit in business class without the business class meal would somehow damage the brand, even after the passenger explicitly agreed to it.
Honestly, that explanation nearly made me laugh.
Especially because Aer Lingus has already stripped back so much over the years trying to imitate the low-cost model:
economy catering keeps getting worse
no complimentary beer or wine anymore
smaller portions
weaker entertainment selection
cabins feel increasingly dated
I still like the staff. Irish cabin crew remain some of the warmest in the industry. And Terminal 2 in Dublin is still one of the smoothest airport experiences around.
But the overall onboard product feels progressively more barebones every year.
The funniest part? Once onboard, the flight was practically empty anyway. I ended up with four seats to myself in economy and nobody near me for several rows. One of the crew even gave me two cokes and extra pretzels, so things improved considerably after all the drama.
Not really posting this out of anger, more disbelief. Refusing to sell an upgrade because the passenger won’t get a fancy reheated meal feels peak modern airline logic.
Ah well.
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