Holidays abroad aren’t a right or a necessity

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Travelling great distances seems to have become an expectation in our entitled society – even a badge of honour (PA)

It’s very sad for the people who have had their holiday cancelled at short notice, and it was disgraceful that many waited for hours at airports with no communication.

But excuse me while I go into grumpy old woman mode. A century ago, a lot of people had little or no time off from work. They certainly didn’t fly around the world.

Holidays abroad aren’t one of life’s necessities. Free time can enjoyably be spent at, or fairly near, home. But travelling great distances seems to have become an expectation in our entitled society – even a badge of honour. Surely the opposite should be the case. Travelling damages the climate. Unless it’s really necessary, is it not best avoided?

The current problem is a shortage of skilled staff. There are fewer unemployed people now in the UK than there are jobs available. Airlines don’t have the staff to do the job, and much of the reason for their existence is ethically questionable. Surely it is, therefore, inevitable and proper that some of them should cease to function.

I would suggest that it might be permissible to make one flight a year to visit relatives, with concessions made in case of illness. But beyond that, air mileage should be rationed.

It’s time we all grew up and smelled the fumes.

Susan Alexander

South Gloucestershire

Half-term travel chaos

Our holiday began with a text as we were about to get in our taxi. The text from Wizz Air told us that our new departure time is three hours later than expected. It stated: your rights were emailed to you. There was no sign of such an email in my inbox at any point in the last month.

We arrived at Gatwick and proceeded to wait four and a half hours for the flight to leave. There was no communication from the carrier, no representative at the airport anywhere. Queues of people at the departure gate around 9pm, no desk attendant in sight.

We got on the plane, and heard: “Sorry for the delay, we couldn’t get enough crew. Would you like some peanuts and water to make up for it?” Well, I suppose we will.

We arrive at 1am local time in Mallorca. Expected time was 8.30pm. Consequently, there was no transfer bus available. We waited another hour for a bus to be sorted and then to leave. It went round most of the island before dropping us off with our two exhausted kids at around 4am. We were told: “Your hotel is just up there. Bye, bye. It’s not a long walk from the main road.”

I contacted the travel company the next day by chat. No apology – and when I mentioned our difficulties, she just left the chat without a goodbye.

Appalling, traumatic experience: I’m not sure how it’s possible to treat people like this. Our next holiday will likely be spent on the Costa del Inglaterra.

Nick J

Address supplied

The Queen’s jubilee

Various media have noted how much change the Queen has experienced throughout her life – not that I see quite what achievement that is.

Millions have lived through periods of rapid change, but the big difference is that they’ve been hugely more impacted by it than members of the royal family.

Dr Anthony Ingleton

Sheffield

Back to the wall

As the Tory backbench letters of no confidence in Boris Johnson begin to mount towards the critical threshold, the passing of the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act earlier this year may now present a perilous obstacle to removing him.

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By abandoning fixed-term parliaments, the House of Commons has effectively returned a principal power of the royal prerogative back to the prime minister.

At his discretion, Johnson can advise the sovereign when to dissolve parliament and call a general election. While convention would assume that he has the assent of his cabinet and wider party to do this, there are precedents where no such assent was sought or desired – as surprise was often regarded as a distinct advantage to the incumbent.

With Johnson’s back to the wall and his loyalty to the Tory party or indeed any party seemingly secondary to his own interests and self-preservation, there is no guarantee that he would not rule out taking the Tories down with him, by calling a bruising general election should any coup to oust him look likely to succeed.

Paul Dolan

Cheshire