The great summer getaway: Rail chaos, soaring air fares and long queues on motorways to impact travel plans

Our travel correspondent reports from the front line of the July getaway

As millions of travellers prepare for the biggest summer getaway since 2019, the transport network looks increasingly precarious.

Across England, thousands of trains are being cancelled due to the latest round of national rail strikes. Up to 20,000 members of the RMT union working for 14 train operators in England walked out on Thursday 20 July in the long and bitter dispute over pay, jobs and working conditions, with two more strike days before the end of the month.

Many airport rail services are likely to be cancelled, leaving hundreds of thousands of airline passengers potentially facing expensive and stressful taxi journeys.

Britain’s biggest budget airline, easyJet, blamed “unprecedented ATC [air-traffic control] disruption” for the large number of cancellations it has made so far this summer – while air fares for immediate departures soar.

Travellers to France by ferry from Dover are warned of border delays of up to 2.5 hours on Saturday morning, when a surge of departing families encounter tougher border checks as a consequence of Brexit.

Motoring organisations are warning of congestion on key motorways as the school holidays in England and Wales begin.

Here’s everything you need to know about transport as the great summer getaway begins.

Rail travel

More than half the trains across England will be cancelled on Saturday 22 July as members of the RMT union working for 14 train operators walk out. Large parts of the country will have no trains at all, while trains that are running on key intercity and commuter lines likely to be overcrowded.

South Western Railway, which runs to and from the UK’s busiest station, London Waterloo, is telling passengers: “Only travel if absolutely necessary. A significantly reduced service will operate on a limited number of lines.

“Large parts of our network will be closed and trains will only run between the hours of 7am and 7pm.” It warns that services on Friday morning will begin later than normal as a result of the Thursday strike.

Talks between the rail firms and the union have been deadlocked since April, when the RMT rejected a pay offer worth at least 4 per cent in each of 2022 and 2023 – subject to reforms in working practices. The deal was not put to members.

Since then, the train operators have announced plans to close almost all station ticket offices at English stations.

The union’s general secretary, Mick Lynch, said: “I am proud of our members for showing such fortitude and resolve in this long running dispute.

“The recent attack on ticket offices and the threat to de-staff our railways has galvanised a huge groundswell of public support which we are grateful for.

“Our members and our union will not be cowed by rail bosses or government ministers and our dispute will continue until we can reach a negotiated settlement.”

The Rail Delivery Group (RDG), representing train operators, says: “We have now made three offers that the RMT executive have blocked without a convincing explanation.”

The RDG blames divisions within the union for the impasse. It issued a briefing asserting: “The RMT executive have blocked the deal negotiated line by line by its top team from going out to its membership for a vote, with frontline workers losing out on a pay rise of up to 13 per cent – alongside job guarantees – as a result. It is difficult to move forward in a dispute when the negotiating team and the executive seem to be at odds.”

Passengers at London stations had mixed views of the strike on Thursday. Sharon Higginson, travelling with two friends from London Euston to her home in Warrington, told The Independent: “We should have been getting the quarter to six train tonight back to [Manchester] Piccadilly. We were told to check on the trains before we leave. Now, we’re leaving at quarter to two to make sure that we get our connection back from Piccadilly to Warrington.

“We’ve got to support the strikers. We’re really very lucky that we can get a train. That’s how we look at it.”

Her message to the government: “Get it sorted. Look after the workers, is what we need. Give them what they want.”

But along the road at London King’s Cross, Steve Gyapay, a retail worker from north London waiting for a train to York, said: “I did have some sympathy [for the unions], I must admit. But it’s waning now because it’s gone on for an awful long time. I think they could have resolved this rather than inconveniencing so many people. They’re quite high earners anyway, relative to what I earn.”

A planned strike of RMT members working for the London Underground, which would have shut down almost all of the Tube network between Sunday 23 July and Friday 28 July, was called off 36 hours before it was due to strike after progress in talks at the conciliation service, Acas.

The final day of the RMT national rail action is scheduled for Saturday 29 July, with some effects continuing to the following day.

On Monday 31 July, a six-day overtime ban for train drivers belonging to Aslef begins. The union is involved in a similar dispute on pay and conditions.

Cricket fans hoping to attend the fifth Ashes Test between England and Australia at the Oval will be hit by both sets of industrial action.

Air travel

Friday 21 July is predicted to be the busiest day for European aviation since 2019, with more than 35,000 departures. Over the weekend, between Friday and Monday, 11,839 flights are scheduled to depart UK airports with 2.1 million seats, according to the aviation analyst, Cirium. On Friday alone, flights will be departing from British airports at a rate of over two per minute.

The most popular international destinations for UK departures are Dublin, Amsterdam, Palma, Malaga and Alicante, Cirium said.

The number of departures is at 89 per cent of 2019 levels. That figure would be even higher but for easyJet cancelling 1,700 flights over two months of the summer peak.

Britain’s biggest budget airline made the schedule cuts in a bid to increase resilience at its main base, London Gatwick.

The easyJet chief executive, Johan Lundgren, said: “We are absolutely focused on mitigating the impact of the challenging external environment on our customers and flying them on their well-earned holidays.”

Partly as a result of easyJet taking 300,000 seats out of the peak summer market, fares have soared.

Most easyJet flights from London Gatwick to Malaga in southern Spain on Saturday are sold out, and on the remaining to the airline has just one seat left at £284 one way. Next Wednesday, 26 July, Ryanair is charging £320 for a 110-minute hop from Luton to Beziers in southwest France.

Road travel

The busiest weekend of the year so far on the roads could see an alarming number of car breakdowns, according to the AA. The motoring organisation predicts 250,000 cars used for holidays in the UK this summer will suffer a breakdown,with those coming from cities facing the greatest risk.

Nick Powell, AA patrol of the year, said: “The low mileages that city cars tend to do, particularly in London, makes it more difficult for their owners to pick up on things that may be going wrong with their vehicles. Go on a journey of hundreds of miles, with the summer holiday challenges of heat and traffic jams, and hidden faults such as tyre and coolant problems can easily spring up and ruin a holiday.”

The RAC predicts Saturday will see the highest number of leisure trips, with peak congestion between 12 noon and 6pm. The M60 Manchester orbital motorway is singled out for the worst jams, anticlockwise between Junction 14 for St Helen’s and Junction 11 for Eccles.

The M5 motorway south of Bristol and London’s M25 are also likely to be extremely busy.

Ferry travel

Over the corresponding weekend in 2022, huge queues built up at the port of Dover and the Eurotunnel terminal at Folkestone as the effects of post-Brexit passport checks became apparent.

Because the UK negotiated to become a “third country”, French frontier police must now stamp every passport and check for the duration of stays in the European Union.

The Kent port’s chief executive, Doug Bannister, said: “When passengers arrive at the Port of Dover, they will be processed through border controls – anticipated to take around 90 minutes on peak days.

“However, our modelling indicates that processing times may be up to 2.5 hours during the peak hours of 6am to 1pm during the first couple of Saturdays and Sundays of the summer holidays, due to the extreme popularity of these days.”

The busiest four hours of the year are expected to be between 6am and 10am on Saturday 22 July, with over 3,100 car arrivals – equating to 13 per minute.

Motorists are being urged not to turn up without bookings, and not to arrive more than three hours ahead of their reserved sailing.

P&O Ferries told passengers: “Rest assured, if you miss your sailing, you’ll be on the first available once at check-in.”

Motorists who reach France are warned by the highway authorities of severe traffic congestion – “circulation très difficile” – on the autoroutes south from Paris all day on Saturday.

Package holidays

Extreme temperatures in southern Europe have not deterred prospective holidaymakers from booking short-notice trips to the Mediterranean. Julia Lo Bue-Said, chief executive of the Advantage Travel Partnership, told The Independent: “Enquiries through our travel agent network continues to be high.

“Other factors such as availability and price are the key factors that determine whether people book – not ‘hot’ weather, which is not resulting in cancellations.

“Without question the Met Office’s forecast of rain in the UK has a bigger influence on behaviours than basking on a beach, being cooled by the sea or dipping in a pool.

“We would always advise holidaymakers to follow the locals, act as they do, take a siesta, keep hydrated and avoid direct midday sun.”