To think that people just don't get supply and demand

[bottlenecker]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26093691

If airports are currently running at capacity then how can lowering taxes on flights help people get a cheaper holiday.

If families are currently willing to pay current high prices for holidays, then reducing taxes will surely lead to holiday companies being able to hike prices even further because people do seem to be able to afford them at the current rate.

Why do people not seem to understand the basics of supply and demand. If people couldn't afford the current costs of holidays to fill seats on the planes then holiday companies would have to put their prices down. They are full though

It is basic economics.

I also feel quite strongly that people should be flying less, for environmental reasons, not more. So there doesn't seem to be much point in lowering prices and increasing demand even further.

Agree MrsC

Yes, I totally agree MrsCakes

In order for holiday's to be cheaper the only logical solution would be for more holidays to be available and increase competition. This of course would probably mean a few new run ways and increased environmental risks.

I think the only political intervention in this should be zoning and staggering of holiday periods.

I cannot see how else any of this would work?!

Plus how will that lost tax revenue help society?

Cheaper holidays but a few less nurses or school resources?

YANBU.

This whole debate is odd to me.

Like you say, planes and hotels are full during the school holidays, so clearly enough people can afford to go on holiday then. If they couldn't, holiday companies wouldn't need any prompting to reduce their prices, they would do it to keep their businesses going anyway.

If there is some rule placed on how big the price difference is allowed to be between term time and holiday, then surely the price will just go up in term time to reduce the difference. The prices may come down slightly in holiday time, but it's never going to be enough to make thousands of people be able to suddenly afford a holiday when they had no way of affording one before.

And the whole thing misses the point that holidays are a luxury!

I wouldn't have a problem with the likes of butlins and haven being given an incentive to make their term time and holiday time prices more alike, but when we're talking about foreign holidays it's just crazy.

No one is entitled to a foreign holiday.

I think the only solution is to stagger holidays by region. I don't think that reducing taxes would work as the holiday companies would hike their prices more.

It is easy to forget that its not only British people who want to go on holiday. If a German family want that villa in greece and they can afford more than the British family then the British family will be priced out.

I think the problem of expensive holidays has got worse with the more draconium rules on taking children out of school during term time. I feel a little leeway for children with otherwise excellent attendence records would help the holiday crisis.

Totally agree. To me it's like arguing that Jimmy Choo should drop their prices to make them more affordable...

I agree with woowooowl

I had a run in with an old friend because she 'hustled fair pricing in the school holidays' and thought the pricing was fair considering it's hard to find availability (we tend to do last minute deals to fit in round DH work). I also pointed out that I think it unfair that pensioners like my parents should have to pay more because she chose to have multiple children and struggles to find the money to go on holiday. Why should they have to pay more and be unable to afford their holiday to subsidise theirs!

Bobflemming

It's not a holiday crisis though is it.

Some of us already couldn't afford a foreign holiday even in term time, more people are just going to have to except like us that it is tough shit, and you either sacrifice other stuff and save for several years or don't go at all.

Holidays aren't a right.

Could you please explain this to the management of the M6 Toll. They built it at a huge cost (despite huge local opposition). They set the toll prices stupidly high in order to recoup their costs. Hardly anyone used it due to high prices (and the fact it bypasses nothing - but that's another topic). They had a meeting & decided it wasn't making enough money. They put the prices up .

And these people are highly paid professionals. Supposedly.

Even if holidays were staggered by region you'd still pay a premium to fly from a local airport at school holiday time.

Totally agree. We have been priced out if Centerparcs and Bluestone style breaks now we have 3 kids and can only go in school holidays. Tough.

We are lucky enough to be able to afford a summer holiday in France - but this is relatively good value. For example I've just looked in CP and a 3 bed house for a week in August is what we would pay for 2 weeks in a Gîte with channel crossing so it isn't the case that all holidays are a huge rip off in school holidays.

Until I was 14 any holidays were in a tent or to family in Glasgow - so I'm very happy with what I get now.

Experiencing a holiday of any description is beyond the means of some families. There are children in dd's class who have never seen the sea yet alone been abroad.

I believe that children gain knowledge of the world and new skills from going on holiday. We went to Cyprus last year and dd mastered doggy paddle from being in the pool three times a day. She loved the holiday and is still talking about almost six months later.

I think we have to think laterally as a country on how to reduce the problem of supply and demand, allow families (including teachers!) to have a break and Children to have a world class education. Children need more than the three Rs. I think that interesting holiday activites is partly what causes the learning gap between middle class children and those on fsm.

That unintelligible word is supposed to be gite

I guessed so mailltojaune

ReallyTired I also agree that more opportunities should be available to children whose families can't afford a holiday, but I don't see how holiday companies or airlines could be forced to facilitate this.

Could more holiday club style activities be provided at low cost? Our LA has excellent, very cheap provision in the summer holidays (a week at a time for different age groups from Y3 up) but as places are limited it is often the sane families who can afford holidays that also manage to organise the applications early enough to get a place.

Really tired

I don't really see what your point has to do with my OP. Although I agree that it would be great if something could be provided local for those children.

I think that interesting holiday activites is partly what causes the learning gap between middle class children and those on fsm.

This is a fair point, but I think there is loads more to it than that. Holiday activities may be a factor, but there are so many council run activity schemes in the holidays that I don't think it's that big a factor.

Pretty much all the activities my children have accessed on holiday are available in this country, with the exception of flying on a plane and a camel ride. They have easily learned more on a three night scout camp at a cost of £50 than they have in two weeks by a pool in Mallorca costing thousands.

Children can be taught to swim, not just doggy paddle, perfectly adequately without leaving your own county if you take your children to the pool regularly.

I completely agree that children need more than the three Rs, but they don't need to be on holiday to get a balanced education and outlook on life.

There are a number of fixed, immovable points in the school calendar - mostly the date of Christmas, date of Easter, and exam season. Schools are desperate to avoid having to give Good Friday and Easter Monday off outside a standard one week/two week break, and only once in the eleven years I've had children at school has the religious holiday been in term time. This year our school is on holiday for the two weeks before Easter weekend, so they go back on the Tuesday.

However, exam season is normally finished by the third week of June - that's why going to Glastonbury was traditionally what we did that weekend , so there is no reason at all why different LEAs couldn't agree to share out six weeks of holiday between June 21st and mid September.

I believe some continental schools usually have one three week holiday in late June and another in late August/early September.

Link to 38Degrees petition.

This has only come up now & so dramatically and in such a warped form because the politicians refuse to back down from a policy that is intransigent about authorising absence in term time. Many other countries do not have such intransigence. For some reason it is easier to vilify the travel industry or supposedly feckless parents, than to allow HTs discretion and not base school Ofsted ratings on attendance (as if, like I emailed my MP this morning, "schools can fully control what parents and children do off site.").

I am not taking DC on holiday in term time because of cost. I am mindful that a summer visit for all of us would cost £2-3k more per week, but cost isn't the overriding factor.

At present I imagine that all future visits to see my family I will do alone, without any DC. It's easy to imagine they therefore won't have any family holidays with us ever again. That is not in any way a deprivation, except according to the government's own official indicators.

lljkk you are absolutely right of course. the real issue is the Gove rule. apparently that cant be debated but I have lobbied my MP and others to ask about this during the debate. whether this happens or not remains to be seen. staggering the holidays across counties seems like a great idea. but lots of the teachers I know with kids teach in one area and live in another (deliberately) so whilst there would be quite a few gainers there would also be a significant number of losers yet again. how many I don't know, there are no stats.

lljkk

So which children should be allowed time off in term time and when?

Not up to me. Let the HTs have discretion without it being a big part of their Ofsted rating and without a wooly word like "exceptional" being applied.