Latest news with #holidaytravel
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Drivers planning bank holiday getaways urged to set off early to avoid jams
Drivers are being warned over long delays on major routes as 17.6 million getaway trips by car are expected to take place in the UK over the August bank holiday period. The RAC, which issued the alert, urged drivers to set off as early as possible or 'be prepared to spend longer in traffic'. The South East and South West are expected to have some of the worst congestion. Some 3.0 million journeys for holidays or day trips are expected to be made on Friday by drivers looking to make the most of the last long weekend before Christmas in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the RAC said. This rises to 3.4 million on Saturday, 2.4 million on Sunday and 2.7 million on Monday. The RAC said an additional 6.1 million drivers are planning a leisure trip at some point between Friday and Monday. The figures are based on responses to a survey of 2,080 UK adults, extrapolated to the 34 million cars licensed in the UK. Transport analytics company Inrix predicted the M5 between Bristol and Devon will have the most severe getaway traffic, with the stretch from junction 15 north of Bristol to junction 23 for Bridgwater likely to see delays of more than 40 minutes on Friday and Saturday. Hold-ups exceeding half an hour are forecast on Friday on the M20 in Kent, which is a route taken by a large proportion of vehicles making Channel crossings via Dover or Folkestone. The warning relates to journeys from junction 7 near Maidstone to junction 3 (Addington Interchange), and from junction 1 at Swanley to junction 5 at Aylesford. RAC mobile servicing and repairs team leader Nick Mullender said: 'With this bank holiday being the last opportunity to enjoy a long weekend before Christmas, our study shows a real eagerness to get out and about with nearly 18 million drivers planning getaway trips. 'More traffic on the roads will inevitably lead to more vehicle breakdowns, especially if the sun makes an appearance and people decide on the day to visit popular destinations. 'We're expecting major roads to airports and coastal destinations to be extremely busy, especially the south-east and south-west regions which could end up bearing the brunt of most holiday hold-ups. 'Anyone planning routes through these areas should set off as early as possible or be prepared to spend longer in traffic.' Meanwhile, rail passengers are being warned that some major routes will be closed for engineering work as Network Rail conducts 261 projects across Britain. There will be no long-distance services between London King's Cross and Peterborough on Sunday, disrupting Anglo-Scottish journeys by LNER and Lumo on the East Coast Main Line. Avanti West Coast will operate a reduced and amended service to and from London Euston. No services will operate between Birmingham New Street and Birmingham International between Saturday and Monday. Affected Avanti West Coast and CrossCountry services will be diverted, extending journey times, while London Northwestern services will run to and from Birmingham International only. Helen Hamlin, Network Rail's chief network operator, said: 'With the August bank holiday weekend approaching, we've carefully planned our engineering work to minimise disruption, allowing people to rely on the railway and make the most of the late summer bank holiday weekend. 'While the vast majority of the railway will be running, works on some parts of the network are unfortunately unavoidable, as we complete major work to support a better, more reliable railway that we wouldn't be able to complete in a normal weekend. 'So we're asking passengers to check their journeys in advance to ensure their route isn't affected.'
Yahoo
11-08-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Overnight stays in Germany hit new record in first half of 2025
Despite a drop in demand from abroad, holiday and business travel in Germany is more popular than ever. German hotels and other large accommodation providers logged a record-breaking 223.3 million overnight stays in the first half of this year, marking a 0.1% rise over the same period in 2024, according to the Federal Statistical Office on Monday. A 12.7% decline in foreign guests in June alone was attributed by statisticians to the unusually high figure a year earlier, when the European Football Championship drew fans from across the globe. The shortfall was more than offset by a 7.4% increase in overnight stays by domestic travellers, boosted by this year's late Easter holidays in April. In total, guests spent 50.5 million nights in the establishments surveyed - those with at least 10 beds - in June, up 3.8% from a year earlier. Solve the daily Crossword
Times
17-07-2025
- Times
EU tolerance of French air traffic control strikes is unacceptable
Summer has landed. So what better time to spend hours at an airport, waiting to take off? Or, better still, find your holiday flight's been cancelled — and all because of those French air traffic controllers, who are once again on strike. It's becoming such a summer ritual that Michael O'Leary, the Ryanair boss, has branded the walk-outs 'recreational': the sort of thing that, by some bizarre coincidence, increasingly happens when ze beau temps est arrivé. The controllers have blamed 'short staffing'. Too right — they're making it worse. Whatever, this holiday season is already off to a cracker. On stats from Eurocontrol — the European organisation for the safety of air navigation — the froggie strikes on July 3 and 4 caused about 7,400 flights to be delayed across Europe, with more than 2,800 cancellations. Passengers affected topped a million, with those figures probably an understatement as the impact rolled on into the next day. As for the airlines, they collectively clocked up a £100 million-plus bill. O'Leary's opposite number at easyJet, Kenton Jarvis, disclosed the effect on his carrier — £15 million of costs — adding that he's 'extremely unhappy' with a situation that brings 'unacceptable challenges for customers and crew', plus 'unexpected and significant costs for all airlines'. Jarvis says he's 'spoken to the secretary of state [transport chief Heidi Alexander] about it because it affects UK consumers', adding: 'I don't think the French government are comfortable with it' either. Who really knows? But Britain needs to crank up the political pressure here because there is an easy fix. France is not the only country causing air traffic delays; plenty suffered when the pandemic hit the recruitment of new controllers. But it's the worst offender 'by a country mile' as Jarvis put it, well ahead of Spain, Germany and the UK, as the website Air Traffic Control Ruined Your Flight underlines. Alongside the strike-happy staff, there's a key reason too. Unlike other nations, including Italy, Spain and Greece, France does not allow 'overflights' — ones that merely pass through its air space — during strikes. And, as Eurocontrol notes, while a third of European flights 'cross, land or take off in France' each day, almost 60 per cent of them are overflights. Protection for French overflights during strikes is an issue O'Leary has been raising for six years with the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen — or von 'Derlayed-Again', as he likes to call her. This month he wrote to her again, saying 'it is up to you as president' to 'protect the single market'. So, 'it is unacceptable that every year, the commission washes its hands of responsibility for Europe's single market for air travel, by claiming that air traffic control is a 'national competence' '. As he noted, 270,000 travellers in the EU alone had their flights cancelled due to this month's strikes: a figure that would be cut by '90 per cent' if the EC insisted on 'France protected overflights' during walk-outs or the EU allowed Eurocontrol to 'manage' them. Requesting she 'please now act or quit', he said: 'It is unacceptable that over your six years as president … you have taken zero action'. It is. Von der Leyen did not reply. Given the impact on British travellers, the government should be badgering both her and President Macron, fresh from a state visit to Britain, to fix this problem. Because right now, it's out of control. First puzzler from the Office for Notional Statistics' latest job figures: how does this even happen? 'UK payrolled employee growth for May 2025, compared with April 2025, has been revised from a decrease of 109,000 reported in the last bulletin to a decrease of 25,000'. Or, to put it another way, last month's stats were wrong by a mere 84,000 people. Where were all those worker bees hiding? True, the monthly jobs stats are invariably revised. But that's a hell of miss for a key input into the Bank of England's interest rate decisions. How's it meant to know what's going on in the labour market with figures like that yo-yo'ing around? • Britain runs on ONS statistics. What happens when they're nonsense? Anyway, second puzzler: what sort of thought experiment was Rachel Reeves indulging in before her budget? Did she somehow convince herself that if she jacked up payroll taxes by £25 billion a year, chased wealth-creating billionaires out of the country and had her boss, Sir Starmergeddon, pass laws giving untried workers first-day employment rights, it would result in boom time for the jobs market? If so, she's predictably out by even more than the ONS's dodgy stats. The inevitable has happened. Unemployment has now hit a fresh four-year high at 4.7 per cent, with payrolls contracting in a year by 178,000, or 0.6 per cent, and falling in seven of the eight months since her budget. On top, hospitality and retail — big employers of young workers — have been hardest hit. As the Federation of Small Businesses put it: 'If you make it more expensive and riskier to give someone a job, the result will be fewer jobs.' Still, don't expect Reeves to grasp that. After all, her budget didn't affect 'working people'. More hot air. 'Plans to slash electricity network costs for energy-intensive businesses by 90 per cent are set in motion as government launches new consultation'. A consultation, no less. Yes, luckily this one is only due to last four weeks, while Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, gets 'industry views' on upping the discount on electricity network charges from 60 per cent to 90 per cent for energy-intensive businesses. But it's meant to save 500 of them 'up to £420 million per year'. So what is his consultation for? They're hardly likely to be opposed to it.
Khaleej Times
14-07-2025
- Khaleej Times
Jaipur-Dubai passengers face 9-hour delay amid multiple flight disruptions
Passengers on multiple Jaipur–Dubai flights endured delays of up to nine hours over the weekend as holiday travel chaos and recurring technical issues disrupted one of the region's busiest routes. The delays, which left flyers stranded without timely updates, mirrored similar disruptions in the Mumbai–Dubai sector, where SpiceJet passengers staged protests after an 11-hour delay sparked viral outrage. On Sunday (July 13), SpiceJet's SG 57 from Jaipur to Dubai finally departed at 6.22pm IST, around nine hours behind its scheduled 9.30am takeoff. Flight tracking data reviewed by Khaleej Times confirms the delay, which airport officials said was caused by a late-arriving inbound aircraft (SG 58) held up in Dubai due to a technical issue. SG 58, originally scheduled to depart Dubai at 3.40am UAE time, finally took off at 12.19pm and landed in Jaipur at 5.34pm, leaving passengers fuming over the lack of communication. "There was no information for hours. We just kept waiting at the gate," said Sharjah resident S. Parmar, who was travelling with his family. "In nine hours, we could've made a round trip," said another passenger. The ordeal came a day after Air India Express flight IX-195 from Jaipur to Dubai was delayed by nearly six hours on Saturday despite the inbound flight arriving on time. Earlier, on July 8, SpiceJet's SG 57 had also faced a significant delay, departing seven hours behind schedule. Khaleej Times has reached out to SpiceJet and Air India Express for comment. Responses were pending at the time of publication. The disruptions extended to Mumbai, where SpiceJet's SG 59 to Dubai departed 11 hours late on Sunday, triggering heated clashes between passengers and staff, according to Indian media. Viral videos showed travellers sitting on the terminal floor, chanting slogans and accusing the airline of not giving them food or water as they waited for updates. SpiceJet later issued a statement acknowledging the disruption. "The aircraft was being serviced, and the operation took longer than expected, with the operating crew crossing their Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL)," a SpiceJet spokesperson said, adding that the airline regrets the inconvenience caused to passengers.
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Travel + Leisure
11-07-2025
- Business
- Travel + Leisure
American Airlines Just Added New Routes to Mexico and the Caribbean—See the Full List
'Tis the season to plan holiday travel. American Airlines recently announced an expanded holiday schedule, with new or increased routes to popular vacation destinations including the British Virgin Islands, Dominican Republic, and Mexico. "American Airlines is giving travelers the perfect gift for Christmas in July with new routes and more flights to popular destinations in Mexico, the Caribbean and Latin America this winter," the airline shared in a news release. The new routes include daily service between Chicago (ORD) to Mexico City (MEX) starting on Oct. 26, 2025, as well as holiday service from Chicago to Queretaro, Mexico (QRO) from Dec. 18, 2025 through Jan. 5, 2026. Additionally, the carrier is increasing its frequency of flights from Philadelphia (PHL) to Aruba (AUA); San Juan, Puerto Rico (SJU); and St. Maarten (SXM) to as many as three daily flights. It is also launching a new daily service between Philadelphia and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (SDQ). The airline's hub at Miami International Airport (MIA) will see a surge of new flight frequencies, including the Bahamas (MHH, ELH); Kingston, Jamaica (KIN); and San Juan (SJU). The airline is also increasing its frequency to Tortola, British Virgin Islands (EIS) to five daily flights. While the airline announced the new routes and schedules, tickets won't be available for purchase until July 14 on American's website or through travel agents. For travelers looking to save on airline travel, experts recommend booking about three months in advance for domestic trips, and more than no later than three months for international trips. Travelers can also save by flying into nearby airports, or booking on off-peak days. 'As the leading U.S. airline in Mexico, the Caribbean and Latin America, at American we're focused on growing our network, giving our customers access to their favorite destinations in the region—from the tropical paradise of Puerto Rico to the dynamic and cosmopolitan city of Mexico City, and beyond,' José A. Freig, Vice President of International and Inflight Dining Operations at American, said in a release. 'With these new routes and additional flying, next winter we'll operate 10% more seats than the previous year, a testament to our commitment to the region and our customers.'
