Cancelling holiday... Due to current airport situation

[Flidina]

Watching the news this morning and the current situation with the holiday companies cancelling flights, has left me pondering whether to actually cancel our long awaited holiday this year,we fly at the beginning of July, the payment balance is due in 2 weeks, and we would lose the deposit, a few hundred, it looks like things will not be improving anytime soon, in fact could get worse. Is anyone considering cancelling?

I know some people who flew from Manchester today no problems. Terminal 2. Approx 2 hours to check in and get through security.

I know there are problems but not every single flight and holiday is affected. I think the press is just fuelling the panic.

Im flying myself later this month and praying I'm not affected but no way am I cancelling.

Are TUI still taking bookings?
I've just searched for holidays leaving tomorrow from our nearest major airport and 901 holidays were found.
If they are, why?

Why wouldn't they be taking bookings? Thousands of holidays are going ahead, exactly as planned.

Eh? Why would you this. How many flights are there daily? 1000's. A small number got cancelled. Totally miserable for those people. But a small %.

"It's the beginning of July, not during school holidays."

So that's the school holidays in other parts of the UK like Scotland then...

🙌 at last! Not all holidays revolve around English school holidays. There are Welsh, Scottish and NI holidays too...

Im due to fly next week and not worried

Of course they are still taking bookings! Why on earth wouldn't they!? They haven't gone bust and still have a business to run.

Not every destination is affected and there are still holidays available.

We are meant to be going Easyjet to Lisbon in two weeks. That flight today was cancelled along with 5 others from my local airport. Several flights to Lisbon over the next two weeks are coming up as sold out. I think that means they'll be cancelled. Bit concerned as we have expensive accommodation booked in Portugal which is non refundable after a certain date. Not hopeful.

Flying easyJet 28/7 to France just a flight, hoping all will be ok

You only read about the ones whose flights or airports have had issues. That's still a small number overall, so the chances of having this go smoothly are still very high. We flew out of Manchester two days before half term with easyjet with no issues at all. I had also been worried but it was fine. Not to minimise the challenges that some have faced, but just to offer the balancing perspective.

We flew into and out of Birmingham airport at Easter, despite the hype even then, it was fine.

My advice, don't watch the news, they love to make a mountain out of a mole hill.

Oh and if you are flying with BA you have to fill in a covid form even if your destination has no covid requirements.

This definitely wasn't the case flying BA to Switzerland last Friday.

(Flew Friday afternoon as we had an inset day. Both outward and return flights were cancelled weeks ago but it was straightforward to book alternatives. Arrived at Heathrow with hand luggage only and hours to spare; airport was breezed through security in 10 minutes. Hoping the return is as uneventful!)

Absolutely 💯

From my (close family) experience, there is no shortage of aircraft mechanics. It's airport security which is the problem, staff have left and realised they can get the same pay for better shifts. Airports are now in the shit - of their own doing.

There is something seriously wrong with the travel infrastructure at the moment. Eurostar was a nightmare. We were queuing from a random carpark near st Pancras for 2 hours. It was absolute carnage and god knows how we’d have managed wirh our youngest if we hadn’t had a buggy. I’ve never seen anything like it. That is not just busyness but a colossal fuck up somewhere along the line.

It's almost as if travel companies thought that they could sack low-paid staff during the pandemic and still have them come crawling back grovelling for the same poor pay, poor conditions jobs at the last minute once the pandemic was over.

They're now utterly screwed because the workforce dynamics have fundamentally changed post-Covid and post-Brexit and the old model of 'people should just be grateful for any job' doesn't hold in a labour-constrained market.