Aer Lingus-One World??
 

Hi, I am based in Ireland, thus all my travel starts and finishes with EI (which is vital for lounge access in LHR after long haul on my way home). anyway I am BA silver and am wondering have EI offically left oneworld as the lounge ba gaurdian at LHR told me today?

No, there were rumours of them leaving but it seems they have decided to remain in OneWorld, for the time being at least. The BA Lounge Dragon was talking nonsense, no doubt trying to deny you entry. As part of an experiment I'm running ;) was she wearing lots of make-up? I have found there is a strong correlation between amount of make-up and denials. ;)

As of 2+ hours after your post, neither the oneWorld site nor the Aer Lingus site has anything that would confirm this. Aer Lingus still has information about oneWorld, earning Aer Lingus credits for partner flights, etc. Something like this would have to be planned well in advance, and updating Web sites is one of the things people know they have to do these days.

I tried calling their US office for confirmation, but it's 9 pm here and they shut down the phones at 7:45.

Maybe someone will have actual hard information?

[And, just as I was waiting to see if I could get through to their office, someone did. Thanks, flyermanES!]

I have just booked a BA J class flight for April and there is no EI J class availability for the SNN-LHR segment. Does this mean EI are dropping their business class as I tried a lot of dates and there was no availability. Surely oneworld would not be happy if there was no business class available.

You are quite correct; AFAIK Aer Lingus are removing/have removed their business class product on all short-haul routes and are moving to a Low Cost model on short haul. This is one reason why BA have removed their code-share on the LHR-DUB route (but it is still available for connecting traffic.)