As soon as Leinster qualified for the Champions Cup final, a press release landed in journalists' inbox declaring that Aer Lingus had laid on an additional four services from Dublin airport to Bilbao to cater for travelling rugby fans.
One of those flights, however, has descended to fury and farce this morning as the airline contrived to have insufficient seating for those who have paid their fares.
Passengers were then met with the absurd scenario in which a flight laid on specifically to accommodate them was unable to take off until six Leinster fans volunteered not to fly.
While the passengers at the airport were told that the flight was overbooked, Aer Lingus have told Balls that the issue arose from a change in aircraft capacity.
Following on from the disruption to take off & landings at Dublin airport yesterday a number of Aer Lingus aircraft were positioned in the wrong location. As a result for one of our Bilbao flights the capacity was slightly lower than required.
Aer Lingus confirms the flight departed and it has been able to move all but 2 of the 2700 guests it is transporting to this weekends Champions cup final
It is unacceptable to Aer Lingus that even 2 guests were effected [sic]- and we apologize for the inconvenience caused.
7.10am Aer Lingus flight to Bilbao overbooked and no solution in sight yet.... pic.twitter.com/QPqCOkDQ9s
— Pat Farrell (@farrellpatm) May 12, 2018
