Ireland’s national airline is facing criticism for refusing to accept Irish language spellings of passenger names when booking a flight online.
Passengers who use a fada on their name are unable to use the correct spelling to book on the Aer Lingus website or app.
Using a fada leads to an error message which says that their name may only “contain letters, spaces, apostrophes, and hyphens”.
Conradh na Gaeilge president Ciarán Mac Giolla Bhéin said the issue was “ludicrous” and “insulting” to Irish speakers.
“This is something that happens, unfortunately, all too often with companies suggesting that somehow the technology doesn’t exist to accommodate fadas,” he said.
“The fact is that the fada is an intrinsic part of the Irish language. If you go to mainland Europe, for instance, where accents or annotations above letters are very common in different languages, they can all be accommodated in France and Spain and different countries there. So it’s ludicrous to suggest that that can’t be accommodated here.”
He said the issue carried particular symbolic weight given the airline’s identity.
“Especially with our language — the flagship airline of the country, whose very name is in Irish. Aer Lingus is in the Irish language, yet the actual names of their passengers can’t be accommodated,” he said.
He added that Irish speakers had a right to have their names rendered correctly, stressing that a name without a fada was not simply an alternative spelling but an entirely different word.
“The name is completely different without the fada — it isn’t the same name. That’s reality. Anyone who speaks Irish will tell you that. The emphasis and the sound are completely different,” he said.
“Irish speakers within their own country have a right to be respected as Irish speakers, and that includes having their name printed or made available as the correct version, which includes the fada.”
Mr Mac Giolla Bhéin said the problem was part of a wider pattern of companies failing to prioritise Irish speakers, and rejected any suggestion that it was a technological limitation.
“Irish names are very, very common. The use of fadas are very, very common within Irish names. Yet we’re still in a situation where you see this on some of the trains and stuff — where people haven’t cleared the fada and it comes up with asterisks instead of the letter, which is insulting to people. It’s long past time,” he said.
“There would be a level of understanding if this technology was new and we were kind of getting to grips with it, but we’ve had computer technology for decades now.”
An Aer Lingus spokesperson said: “The Aer Lingus booking system, Astral, does not currently facilitate the use of special characters, as it was developed in the late 60s on a platform which does not cater for fadas or other special characters.
“We recognise the limitations of the system with respect to accepting special characters and apologise to customers for any inconvenience caused.
“This technical limitation does not impact a customer’s ability to travel with Aer Lingus, and passengers can fly without issue even where special characters cannot be reflected in the booking.
“As part of future systems development, we are considering implementing reasonable steps to address this issue.”
