Rail passengers hoping to travel over the August bank holiday weekend face a host of problems from strikes and engineering works, while some intercity rail journeys will take much longer or prove impossible.
Road and air travellers seeking to make the most of the final bank holiday before Christmas also face congestion. The RAC warns that Saturday will see the highest amount of getaway traffic on the roads, while some major UK airports are having their busiest days of the summer over the long weekend.
Problems for airline passengers could be intensified by air-traffic control staff shortages across Europe – and continuing Air Canada cancellations.
These are the key bank holiday travel problems.
Rail
Intercity train passengers face multiple problems trying to get around Britain, due to combination of strikes and pre-planned Network Rail engineering work. Dry conditions are also reducing speeds and services on South Western Railway between London and Exeter, and on the C2C line from the capital to south Essex.
CrossCountry services will range from few to zero. Rail passengers on the flagship East Coast Main Line to and from London King's Cross will need to find alternative routes, as will travellers through the West Midlands east of Birmingham.
The coach operator National Express has laid on 9,000 extra seats in response to the disruption, and says passenger numbers are up 20 per cent on a year ago.
The worst-affected rail services:
CrossCountry
The intercity operator connecting England, Wales and Scotland through its hub in Birmingham is running no trains on Saturday 23 August due to a strike by members of the RMT. The union says CrossCountry has failed to honour agreements on pay, staffing and safety.
“You are strongly advised not to travel, or to travel either side of the bank holiday weekend,” says National Rail.
Although CrossCountry staff are not striking on Sunday, many cancellations are expected.
On bank holiday Monday, a skeleton CrossCountry service will operate between 8am and 6pm only.
No CrossCountry trains will run between Birmingham New Street, Reading and the south coast, or on the link from Leicester via Cambridge to Stansted airport.
“There will only be a very limited service to the south west and north of York,” passengers are warned. “Trains that do run are expected to be busy.”
West Coast Main Line
The link between Birmingham New Street and Birmingham International, serving the city’s airport, will close on Sunday and Monday.
“Avanti and CrossCountry services will be diverted with extended journey times, and London Northwestern services will terminate at Birmingham International,” says Network Rail. Fast London-Birmingham trains, normally taking 80 minutes, are scheduled for two hours.
Bizarrely, Network Rail has been telling the public that rail replacement buses will be running on Saturday, even though services are running normally.
One glimmer of good news: bridge replacement work at Stockport, which has hit services in and out of Manchester Piccadilly for almost all of August, is expected to be completed on Friday 22 August.
East Coast Main Line
On Sunday 24 August, the southern section of the link connecting London King's Cross with Yorkshire, northeast England and Scotland will close completely between the capital and Peterborough.
Rail replacement buses will run between Bedford, on the East Midlands line from London St Pancras International, and Peterborough. That journey is expected to take around two-and-a-half hours, compared with the normal 47-minute train trip.
Some Saturday evening and Monday morning trains will also be affected.
Hull Trains will run via the East Midlands line in and out of London St Pancras, but some trains may be cancelled due to a strike by members of the train drivers’ union, Aslef.
ScotRail
Lines southwest from Glasgow Central to Kilmarnock, Dumfries and Stranraer will be disrupted by engineering work on Saturday and Sunday.
Unexpected disruptions
On Saturday morning, the branch line between Slough and Windsor is closed due to a broken-down train.
There are cancellations on the Island Line on the Isle of Wight due to staff shortage.
Road
The RAC says major routes to coastal regions will bear the brunt of the traffic over the bank holiday weekend.
The peak day for leisure trips will be Saturday 23 August with 3.4 million on the road. Sunday is predicted to be “free flowing”, while Monday will see 2.7 million trips.
The RAC says the busiest times will be:
The M5 south towards Devon is expected to see delays for more than 40 minutes on Saturday, with the biggest jams between the junction with the M4 and junction 23 for Bridgwater and Wells.
Stretches of the M20 through Kent between Swanley and Maidstone could see slow traffic adding half-an-hour or more to journeys.
For motorists returning from the Cote d’Azur, the French transport ministry warns of circulation extrêmement difficile (“extremely difficult traffic”) from the “Mediterranean arc” of southern France towards Paris on Saturday.
Ferry
Outbound from the Port of Dover, motorists are facing delays on Saturday morning. The ferry firm DFDS reports: “Wait times of up to 75 minutes at border controls and 20 minutes at check-in.”
Passengers who miss ferries will be put on the next available departure without extra cost.
Later in the weekend, the biggest hold-ups are likely to be at Calais, with British motorists heading home from Continental Europe. Formalities at the port are “juxtaposed”: after passing through the French border checkpoint, where British passports must be examined and stamped, UK Border Force officials check the admissibility of motorists and coach passengers.
Air
Friday 22 August was the busiest day of the year at Manchester airport. Around 118,000 passengers, evenly split between inbound and outbound, flew to or from the nation’s third-busiest airport. On Sunday, Gatwick is expected to handle 900 flights – with departures and arrivals separated by as little as 65 seconds.
At Liverpool John Lennon airport, bank holiday Monday is predicted to be the busiest day of the summer.
The aviation analyst Cirium says 12,474 flights are scheduled to depart UK airports – equating to over two million seats – between Friday and Monday. The figure is 5 per cent down on the same bank holiday weekend in 2019.
Air traffic control strikes and staff shortages as well as summer storms are likely to delay European flights over the weekend.
Controllers in Belgrade have begun a 40-day strike, which is disrupting links from the UK to Greece and Turkey. Ryanair says 99 flights of its flights were delayed in the first two days of the strike, disrupting 17,800 passengers.
By Saturday it became clear that the worst problems across Europe are between the UK and Greece, Turkey and Cyprus.
The airline’s communications director, Jade Kirwan, said:“It is unacceptable that passengers not even flying to or from Serbia but are simply overflying Serbian airspace en route to their destination are being forced to suffer unnecessary disruption.
“It makes no sense and is abundantly unfair on EU passengers and families going on holidays.”
Eurocontrol, the pan-European coordination centre in Brussels, said earlier this month that 26 per cent of network delays were generated by France (due to “capacity and staffing issues”), 16 per cent by Greece (“staffing issues and weather”), and 13 per cent by Spain (“capacity issues related to high demand)”.
The busiest days at Heathrow and Stansted are yet to come: Friday 29 August and Sunday 31 August respectively. Some Air Canada cancellations continue after last weekend’s chaotic strike.
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