Holidaymakers are facing flight cancellations and the prospect of road delays as the start of the half-semester and the UK prepares for an extended banking holiday weekend.
The June semi-secret traditionally heralds the start of the summer tourist season, and this year comes amid renewed consumer demand for a holiday following the easing of travel restrictions in the UK Covid.
At the start of the busiest time to travel since the pandemic, passengers were stranded in one-hour queues at several airports over the weekend and a series of flights were canceled by airlines, including easyJet and Tui.
There were new problems at Manchester airport, where many passengers missed their flights earlier in the spring after hours of waiting to get through security.
The airport, which along with much of the aviation industry is struggling to hire staff after making redundancies during the pandemic, warned on its official Twitter page that there were delays in checking in and picking up luggage.
The airport tweeted that it was “aware of the challenges facing a number of airlines and handling agents” and apologized for the situation and urged passengers to contact their airline.
Matthew Ashton, vice president of design for toy maker Lego, was one of the passengers who shared problems at Manchester airport on Sunday. He tweeted that this Ryanair flight had been “back on the runway for about an hour” and could not take off because the luggage from the previous flight had not yet been unloaded.
Dublin Airport also warned passengers on Sunday that they could miss their flights due to “significant queues” at the check-in, baggage and security terminal. About 50,000 passengers had to leave the airport during the day.
Passengers of the airlines, which were expecting to take off with the travel company Tui over the weekend, also complained about the late cancellation of many flights that had to take off from airports in the UK.
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The travel company said it had canceled a “small number” of flights between Friday and Sunday at airports, including Gatwick, Birmingham and Bristol, and blamed “operational and supply chain problems”.
Tui’s cancellation came after easyJet cut more than 200 flights that had to depart from London Gatwick for a 10-day period from May 28 to June 6, disrupting the travel plans of tens of thousands of holidaymakers.
An easyJet spokesman apologized for the “inconvenience” caused to passengers, but said the move was “necessary to provide reliable services during this busy time”.
The series of last-minute canceled flights will cause “huge disruption and disaster,” according to Rory Boland, Koi’s editor. Travel, who added that this “is not an isolated event.”
Boland said the consumer group had “heard from passengers who complained that the airline was disregarding their consumer rights, and that it did not communicate effectively with those who stayed abroad and did not know when they could return home. “.
Who? calls on the aviation regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority, to have the power to impose direct fines on airlines that disregard consumer law.
Drivers have been warned on the road that they will face delays and disruptions, as it is estimated that another 5 million people will use their cars for long weekend travel.
Drivers plan 19.5 million leisure trips during long breaks, according to a RAC Breakdown study, while people visit family and friends or go out for the day.
RAC traffic spokesman Rod Dennis said: “The fact that public holidays coincide with the end of the semester in many places has the potential to put additional pressure on the road network, so careful travel planning is important to overcome the most the worst of all queues. “
However, some breaks in the trip are expected to continue after the holidays. A rail union leader said he “sees no way out of the strikes” that could hit the railways in mid-June, ahead of the expected arrival of members of the rail, sea and transport (RMT) union for jobs and pay.
RMT Secretary General Mick Lynch told Sophie Ridge’s Sky News on Sunday that strike action was “very, very likely” unless the government instructed companies to “change their line.”
The prospect of a railway strike has raised fears that large parts of the railway network will be closed, which could affect the supply of petrol and diesel and the supply of goods to shops.
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