Recently we flew from Hartford, Connecticut to Dublin Ireland on AerLingus. Our flights were on time. Our luggage arrived with us. There were no issues at the airport. Their personnel were helpful and professional. However, there was a big disconnect between this actual service and the ticketing process and those employees and administrators who oversee customer service. When one makes a ticket reservation you are required to choose a title for every passenger. The title must match the title on the passenger’s passport, and it must be chosen from a drop-down menu on the AerLingus reservation form. The drop-down menu choices are “Mr., Mrs., Ms., or Dr.” One of our party is transgender. On their passport their gender is listed as “X”. There was no appropriate title available for them on the AerLingus drop down menu, but we had to make a choice if we were to reserve tickets.
I wrote about my dilemma on the AerLingus chat line, made calls to their phone lines, wrote messages on What’s App, wrote letters to their CEO, executive vp, and head of consumer relations to explain that there was no appropriate title for our transgender passenger and to try to find a way to resolve that. My letters went unanswered. My calls yielded no solution. My written correspondence with agents yielded circular instructions that I contact other offices. All informed me that there was no way to make a change and that our transgender passenger would have to agree to being misgendered to fit their company policy.
After many hours, an agent said that “For this one time” they would make an exception and not require any title. And “for this one time,” that allowed us all to move forward with our trip to Ireland. However, the problem still exists for any other trans passenger trying to fly AerLingus. In our area, which is made up of such a large LGBTQ+ community and has such an active group of LGBTQ+ allies, one would hope that a company that is working to make a positive place for itself would try to be supportive of the whole of our community. While service was quite good — until this airline acknowledges and respects their trans passengers, I cannot support doing any more business with AerLingus.
Candace Birk
Florence