Getaway that wasn’t!

Travel woes as bumper bank holiday begins

THE great bank holiday and half term getaway began in chaos yesterday thanks to trouble at airports, motorways and ports.

More than 20,000 passengers had their travel plans thrown into disarray after British Airways cancelled 175 flights.

Hold-ups on the roads did not take long to materialise when a five-mile queue built up on the M25 approaching the Dartford Crossing yesterday morning. By mid-afternoon there were jams on the M5, the M3, the M6, the M1 and the M4.

And at the port of Dover, which was expecting up to 5,500 cars and 350 coaches yesterday, queues lengthened to two hours by 11am and some holidaymakers missed ferries.

This weekend is set to be the busiest bank holiday since 2019, with up to 19million car journeys predicted and a surge in rail travel. More than 3,000 flights were planned yesterday, carrying hundreds of thousands of passengers. This is due to the combination of families heading overseas for the half-term school holiday in England and Wales, and Monday being a bank holiday. British Airways had been hit by a ‘technical issue’ on Thursday, forcing it to cancel 92 flights, mostly at Heathrow. The problem was resolved by Thursday evening, it said, but a further 83 flights were cancelled yesterday, according to data firm Cirium, because aircraft and crew were out of position. Heathrow’s Terminal 5 turned into ‘absolute chaos’, one traveller said, with two BA staff dealing with a queue that was ‘probably around 100 metres long’.

A BA spokesman said it had apologised to customers and offered the option to rebook their flight or request a refund. BA is planning a normal schedule today.

Huge queues were also seen at Manchester Aairport but no major delays were reported. Michelle Murphy, 53, and Gregg Walmsley, 57, from Manchester, were heading to Madeira and got caught up in queues. Ms Murphy said: ‘We got here three hours before our 4pm flight and we thought we’d have plenty of time. It’s not the start to the holiday we wanted.’

Aside from the chaos, the good news is that sunny weather is predicted all weekend and, according to the AA, fuel prices are now at their lowest since October 2021.