The ashes of a man’s parents have been lost by Aer Lingus - as he was travelling to Ireland to scatter their remains.
Irish emigrant Bob Gilmour travelled to Dublin from Australia via Milan and despite being in Ireland since Saturday, the bags with the remains have still not been found.
Bob’s dad, Sam was from Ballymena in Co Antrim while his mum was from Birmingham in the UK.
Mr Gilmour told RTE’s Drivetime that both of his parents had said before their deaths that they wanted to have their ashes scattered on their family graves in their respective home countries.
He said: “My parents emigrated to Australia in the 60s and started the family.
“But mum always saw herself as an English woman, dad always saw himself as an Irish man.
“They both indicated that when they died, they’d like their ashes brought home to be scattered on their parent’s graves in Ballymena and Birmingham.”
“The check-in in Milan was chaotic, we arrived in plenty of time to check-in.
“Ours were the last four bags to go up the checkout shoot.
“When we arrived into Dublin our bags were not on the aircraft and two of them have not been seen since.”
And Bob said that since arriving on Saturday, they have been waiting on news about the bags.
“We filled in the paperwork we were asked to wait but we’ve had no luck with Aer Lingus.
“What’s made it really really tough is trying to deal with a call centre presumably in India and a website, that I don’t want to speak badly of the people who work at these things but the process is less than useless.
“The whole process seems to be that once you’ve filled out your paperwork, go away and don’t annoy us until you get your bags back”.
Bob said that the ceremony for his dad will still go ahead tomorrow, with or without the ashes.
In a statement, Aer Lingus said: “Aer Lingus sincerely apologises for the misplaced baggage.
“We recognise the sensitivities of this particular situation and are working with all the parties involved to retrieve the baggage as quickly as we can.”
