Ireland: Flight To London

We got picked up by another car company and drove to Shannon Airport. We had no problems checking in with Aer Lingus or going through security - they were nice and helpful like the English had been. We had to wait in the general waiting area and then were told to go to our gate. The Aer Lingus guy said that the plane was undergoing "routine maintenance" and that we would be delayed. I know he was lying because who schedules maintenance when the plane is supposed to be in the air?

Shannon Airport had a Smoking Lounge, but you had to walk down 40 stairs so I took my mom to the edge of the stairs and she smoked there. Then when I brought her to the wheelchair bathroom it wasn't big enough to have the wheelchair in the room and shut the door at the same time. I guess Ireland is only made for handicapped leprechauns since no one was able to help an actual human in a wheelchair.

The flight was finally going to leave 2 hours late. Everyone person I spoke to at Aer Lingus was disorganized and had no idea what was going on. They said I could go out with my mom as the pre-boarded her from an elevator (since there were stairs to the plane.) The guy at the elevator told me to go to the stairs to meet my mom in the plane. When I went up the stairs a guy yelled at me to get off the stairs. I asked the woman who took our boarding passes and she had no idea what was going on. When they finally let me on I asked the flight attendant where they were going to bring my mom out of the elevator and she said there was no elevator. I asked the head flight attendant and she was a real witch (with a capital B.) She started telling me that nothing was organized because of the 2 hour delay and that I would just have to wait. I told her that I was there to help my mom get to her seat. She said that I was lucky that the airline gave her a seat right in the front. I told her that Aer Lingus had given us seats in aisle 35 and that when I checked us in online I changed them to aisle 12. The capitan (Paul) came out of the cockpit and started telling me to sit down in my seat. I told him I was waiting to help my mom and that no one was doing anything to tell me where she was. Finally the guys brought my mom out of the elevator, but wouldn't let me help her to her seat.

When we landed in Heathrow we had to wait 20 minutes after the last passenger got off for the wheelchair. The head flight attendant tried to blame it on Heathrow being a large airport and when I told her that we had no problems getting the wheelchair at the gate when we landed at Heathrow from Boston she just shut up.

I took my mom to the wheelchair bathroom in London while we were waiting for our bags and it was a big difference from Ireland - you could fit about 5 wheelchairs in the room made for one.

We got our bags and met the driver we hired to bring us to our hotel.