Many schools across the UK finished for the Easter holidays on Friday 4 April, with most planning holidays right through to Easter Monday, 21 April. Over the holidays, there will be severe delays on some roads and motorways.
Key intercity rail links will be interrupted by planned Network Rail engineering work, especially over Easter. Airlines are warning of the most delayed flights in a quarter-century, as air traffic control centres struggle with staff shortages. And ferry passengers may encounter delays – returning from France.
These are the key pain points for Easter travellers.
Road
The transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, said the government is “lifting 1,127 miles of roadworks over Easter and cracking down on disruptive street works to make journeys to see loved ones as smooth as possible”.
For holiday journeys within the UK, The Independent has used data from previous years to predict the heaviest traffic on four key arteries:
- M6 north of Birmingham, especially Preston and beyond as holidaymakers head for Blackpool and the Lake District.
- M5 southwest from Birmingham to Bristol and Exeter
- A303 southwest through Wiltshire
- M25 particularly between the M23 and M40 junctions to the southwest, and the Dartford Crossing to the east.
On Good Friday, drivers are advised to start their trips as early as possible in the morning or delay them until later in the afternoon.
For those returning from the West Country on Easter Monday, 21 April, delays of nearly an hour are expected around 2.30pm on the M5 northbound between Taunton and the M4 north of Bristol.
RAC breakdown spokesperson Alice Simpson said: “The late bank holiday weekend clashes with the end of the Easter break for many schools – which we think will change the nature of this year’s getaway.
“Although journey numbers are still very high, we’re anticipating more day trips and weekend breaks than people heading off on one and two-week stints.”
In addition, the AA forecasts congestion in “town and city centres, shopping and retail parks”.
Ferry
On Good Friday morning queues are building up at Dover. The Port of Dover said at 8.10am: “P&O traffic is causing extended processing times at Border Control.” Passport checks for France are conducted at the port before travellers board ferries.
Motorists are told to expect a wait of around 40 minutes ahead of the French border post, and the same length of time for P&O Ferries check-in. The wait for DFDS Ferries check-in is 15 minutes.
DFDS Ferries says: “We are aware of the queues to arrive at check-in. Please be assured that once you arrive at check-in. we will ensure you are checked-in on the first available departure.”
In previous years, Dover has been the scene of severe delays during the Easter holidays, as coaches converge on the UK’s main ferry port. But the failure of the European Union to introduce the entry-exit scheme as promised in November 2024 means journeys should be smoother than they might otherwise be, with no need for vehicle occupants to be fingerprinted or photographed.
Bigger problems are likely to face motorists returning from France to Dover between Saturday 19 and Monday 21 April.
Last weekend queues of 90 minutes built up for the border formalities at Calais, where both French and UK frontier staff check documents before passengers board their ferries.
Further congestion may be triggered by European visitors to the UK being unaware that they now need an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) permit to visit. They will be able to apply for one on the spot, but this may increase delays at UK Border Control at Calais.
In the Western Isles of Scotland, ferry passenger using Caledonian MacBrayne face a range of problems.
On Friday, the link to South Uist from Oban is cancelled because of forecast adverse weather, with risk of disruption on Saturday. Other ferries serving the Hebrides may stay in port as a result of strong northeasterly winds.
On the Oban-Coll-Tiree route, the ferry firm warns: “Due to forecast of adverse weather, this service is liable to disruption or cancellation at short notice.”
Until Tuesday 22 April, the link from Mallaig to Armadale on Skye has cancellations due to staff shortage.
Arran ferries are currently sailing from Troon, not Ardrossan, to Brodick.
Rail
Passengers across Britain face disruption over the Easter weekend due to Network Rail engineering projects closing key lines.
The Easter weekend began badly on key intercity lines. The East Coast main line, which connects London King's Cross with Yorkshire, northeast England and Scotland, was closed between Peterborough and the capital due to a lineside fire at Stevenage for much of Thursday evening.
Trains continue to be disrupted on Good Friday as operators get rolling stock and crew back in position.
On the Great Western line between Bristol and London, late trains on Thursday were delayed by up to four hours after an express hit an animal between Swindon and Didcot. On Friday, early services were disrupted by a points failure at Reading.
On Good Friday, the Avanti West Coast service connecting London Euston with the West Midlands, northwest England, North Wales and southern Scotland, will be reduced.
The West Coast main line is closed completely at London Euston from Saturday 19 to Monday 21 April.
Network Rail says: “Renewals of overhead lines, switches and crossings, and drainage work to improve reliability, means services between London Euston and Milton Keynes Central will be disrupted.” Buses will connect Bedford – served by Thameslink and East Midlands Railway – with Milton Keynes Central, from where reduced services will run.
Further north on the West Coast main line, nothing will run from Carlisle into Scotland due to track replacement work from Saturday to Monday. The Caledonian Sleeper will be re-routed via the East Coast main line to and from London King's Cross.
HS2 – the controversial, delayed and curtailed line intended to link London with Birmingham – is causing the closure of the Chiltern Railways line between London Marylebone and Aylesbury. A bridge is being installed between Great Missenden and Aylesbury.
London Paddington, hub for the Great Western Network, will also see sharp reductions in capacity with two of the four lines running west to Reading closed over the Easter weekend. Journeys to and from London Paddington are expected to take longer because of congestion. The Heathrow Express will be reduced from every 15 minutes to half-hourly.
The now-traditional bank holiday closure of the main line between London Liverpool Street and Colchester, Ipswich and Norwich will this year take place on Easter Sunday and Monday.
Buses will replace trains between Colchester and Billericay, extending journeys by over an hour.
Elsewhere, the half of London Victoria station that serves Southeastern destinations across Kent will be closed through the entire Easter holiday weekend. While some passengers will be able to use other London terminals, the key link from Canterbury to Ramsgate, serving the holiday resorts of Margate and Broadstairs, is closing with bus replacement services.
Across in East Sussex, the resorts of Eastbourne, Bexhill and Hastings will have their train service replaced by buses.
Passengers heading from the other half of Victoria to Gatwick airport and Brighton will find services reduced due to work on the line to Clapham Junction.
Stansted airport’s CrossCountry link to and from Cambridge will close from Good Friday to Easter Monday, but the Stansted Express line to London Liverpool Street should run as normal.
From Monday 14 to Friday 18 April, the build-up to Easter, will see no trains from Southampton to Fareham or from Cardiff Queen Street to Cardiff Bay.
In Northern Ireland, the line from Belfast to Derry is closed on Friday and Saturday between Antrim and Coleraine.
The Enterprise rail link between Belfast and Dublin will be replaced by a bus from Saturday to Monday.
In France, rail strikes on the SNCF network are threatened during a six-week spell from Maundy Thursday, 17 April. to 2 June. The SudRail union has issued a strike notice warning of possible industrial action by train conductors in a dispute over rosters.
The union said: “Management bears the responsibility for a possible strike, and it is they who still have the opportunity to prevent the anger of the conductors from escalating and spreading to other professions.”
Air
The summer schedules took effect at the end of March, with more than 70 new routes being launched to and from the UK.
The Independent has learnt the busiest days for key airports are expected to be as follows:
- Bristol 18-21 April
- Edinburgh 20 April
- Gatwick 18 April
- Glasgow 20 April
- Liverpool 18 April
- Luton 18 April
- Manchester 18 April
Aviation analytics firm Cirium says Good Friday, 18 April, will be the busiest day overall, with 2,949 flights taking off from UK airports – a departure every 30 seconds on average.
Britain's biggest budget airline, easyJet, confirms its busiest day will be Good Friday. The carrier plans more than 1,100 flights to or from UK airports carrying up to 145,000 passengers. The top sunshine destinations are Dalaman in Turkey and the Spanish islands of Mallorca and Tenerife.
But with air traffic control centres across Europe still chronically short of staff, holidaymakers face the worst disruption caused by congestion in the skies in a quarter-century.
Ryanair says 36.2 million of its passengers have been impacted by air traffic control restrictions in the last year, with more than 200,000 flights delayed. Travellers to and from France and Spain are worst affected.
Ben Smith, chief executive of Air France-KLM, said in March: “The shortage of air traffic controllers [in France] is 20-25 per cent, which means many of our flights are going to be delayed, and we already know this.”
According to Cirium, the top 10 international destinations for Easter (by seats, scheduled to depart from UK airports over the Easter weekend 18-21 April) are:
- Dublin: 69,217
- Amsterdam: 59,631
- Alicante: 45,364
- Malaga: 45,123
- Palma: 42,830
- Dubai: 40,417
- Faro: 37,580
- Tenerife: 36,650
- Barcelona: 33,838
- Paris: 30,659
The most popular country is Spain, with half of the top 10. Portugal and Turkey are in joint second place (two each in the top 20). Bubbling under: Antalya, New York and Geneva.
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