Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I think there is a difference. Ghost flights involve the refund issue. Aer Lingus operated pseudoflights. Passengers made bookings but the flights never took place. Passengers will be refunded. If the Chairman does not mind, I will explain.

For about ten weeks Aer Lingus continued to advertise three flights a day from its Shannon Airport base. Customers would make a booking and pay. About ten days later they would get a follow-up email saying the flight was not operating and they would be refunded. To the dismay of travellers planning journeys, the refund has still not come through for some people. Some refunds have taken six months to issue. At a time when a lot of people are hard pressed for cash it was amoral of Aer Lingus to continue to take bookings when it had no intention whatsoever of flying. The company took money from customers and promised to reimburse them but it is delaying that process. Consumer cash was coming into the airline, albeit not much because bookings decreased hugely, and being held up in its inner processes. It is only very slowly being reimbursed.