2 flight issues

You might be lucky to get anything at all.

Presume you mean compensation under EU261, Doubt you'd get a cent because Passengers are only entitled to claim compensation if the delay or cancellation was within the airline's control , the ATC Outtage which caused this chaos was not within the airline control

Be thankful they're getting you home relatively quickly, some people are stuck abroad until Thurs/Friday

Sounds like you would be due compensation...unless it was extraordinary circumstances you should get it

We had a claim with Tui last year, took ages but we got 1600 back eventually

Cancelled flight

Cancellation occurs when:

• your original flight schedule is abandoned and you are transferred to another scheduled flight
• the aircraft took off but, was forced to return to the airport of departure and you were transferred to another flight
• your flight arrives at an airport which is not the final destination indicated on your ticket, unless:
  • You accepted re-routing (under comparable transport conditions at the earliest opportunity) to the airport of your original final destination or to any other destination agreed by you. In this case it is considered as a delay and not a cancellation.
  • The airport of arrival and the airport of the original final destination serve the same town, city or region. In this case it is considered as a delay and not a cancellation.

If your flight is cancelled you have the right to choose between reimbursement, re-routing or return.

You are also entitled to assistance at the airport.

If you were informed of the cancellation less than 14 days prior to the scheduled departure date, you have a right to compensation. The airline has the obligation to prove if and when you were personally informed that the flight was cancelled. If this is not the case you can contact your national authority

 for further assistance.

However, compensation is not due if the carrier can prove that the cancellation is caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. The airline has to prove this by providing, for example, extracts from logbooks or incident reports. The air carrier should give this evidence to the relevant national enforcement body as well as to the passengers concerned in line with national provisions on access to documents.

Travelling from the UK to an EU country

From 1 January 2021, EU rules on air passenger rights do not apply to cases of denied boarding, cancellations or delays to flights from the UK to the EU if your flight was operated by a UK carrier or another non-EU carrier, even if you booked your flight before this date. However, EU rules continue to apply from 1 January 2021 if your flight from the UK to the EU was operated by an EU carrier, unless you have already received compensation or benefits

https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-rights/air/index_en.htm#cancellation

I'll never use Are Lingus again after an issue some years back, we went to Newcastle for the UFC, flying back on Monday and it started snowing at airport, airport then closed, are Lingus cancelled the flight and said we could change to next flight home, which was Thursday, had to get a train at own cost from Newcastle to Manchester and they put us on a flight from there the next day, never offered us a thing, disgraceful from national airline.

I see the more things change the more they stay the same

Sort of, we had to make our own way from Newcastle to Manchester, took 8hrs on a train due to flooding in Yorkshire, when we rang AL to ask about a switch to Manchester they didn't have a clue about the cancellation, looked it up and gave us the flights.

Not one person at Newcastle helping us

Open to correction but aer Lingus is not our national airline a long time ago when the government sold its stake in it

In the circumstances you describe, the likelihood of being able to find three coaches at short notice was not high. After all, flooding was impeding rail services.

I've gotta say I've never heard of any airline hiring coaches to transport passengers to another city so they can pick up a different flight. Apart from anything else, hiring three coaches to transport passengers to, say, Glasgow would only make sense if the flights leaving Glasgow had three coach-loads of empty seats on them. If you can get to Glasgow or another city under your own steam and there are seats available, then theyll rebook you. In terms of getting people to their destinations this actually works better, since passengers can disperse to different cities, and so maximise takeup of the available seats.

I had this problem a few years back in Bristol, when the Ryanair flight that was to take me to Dublin couldn't land because of fog. I rang Ryanair, had them transfer my booking to a Birmingham flight, hired a car, drove to Birmingham, got the flight. Ryanair were never going to bring all the Bristol passengers to Birmingham; most of them would just have been stuck in Birmingham instead of stuck in Bristol.