To book a holiday for Friday?

[FatBurger]

Would I be an idiot to book a lady minute holiday on Friday given the air traffic issues? Do you think it'll be resolved by Friday? Just thinking about a last minute break with DH and the kids before school starts. Centre parks is fully booked.

@Imnoonesfool

Usually airlines put on repatriation flights when incidents occur but don’t seem to be doing it and I’m wondering if this is because they are not required to pay compo in this situation.

I'm not sure it's really that usual but anyway, no it's not down to the compo.

It's simply a case the airlines don't have much if any in the way of extra aircraft and crews tucked away to be able to run dedicated repatriation flights in addition to running their (hopefully) normal schedule. The airlines need to get back to normal PDQ to prevent disrupting even more people's travel plans and holidays.

I'm not saying you won't get the odd ad-hoc repatriation flight, but it won't be commonplace...

Id go, though might choose somewhere that has quite a few flights. If you can book a holiday then there are flights with empty seats that are not needed by people currently abroad. Go for it.

I'd go definitely

We are flying to the states on Saturday and I’m not anticipating any issues

We’re under the flight path for both Liverpool and Manchester airports and i saw planes yesterday. Which confused me after the media reporting no flights whatsoever!

I guess if they’re letting you book flights then they must be possible or? Just make sure you have insurance.

I’m going on holiday tomorrow. Our flight is still scheduled to depart as normal and the same flight departed at its scheduled time yesterday and today.

The IT foul up that it seems caused all the disruption started late AM Monday and only lasted about 4 hours (if I recall timings correctly). UK airspace was back to normal in terms of capacity since mid-PM that same day, so yep, there were plenty of flights yesterday (Tuesday).

The airlines are now trying to operate normal schedules with flights being available to book where there is space available.

@Imnoonesfool

I stand slightly corrected, it looks like Easyjet is magic'ing up five(?) dedicated repatriation flights (the word used is "flights", so that's maybe one or two aircraft), not sure of the to/from.. which is some good news.

Yeah I think it's more of a catch up job now isn't it? Which obviously presents a lot of it own logistical problems of course!

I would , just be prepared to spend a few extra days there. Get good travel insurance.

Book it! You'll be fine. The issue has been resolved, flights are operating fine.
Anyone still stuck somewhere is because their booked flight was cancelled, their airline needs to find them a seat on another flight to travel, and in some popular destinations there just haven't been enough spare seats yet for everyone.
If you've seen flights with seats available then they obviously haven't been needed for those extra travellers so go for it!

Trenitalia said ticket switching wasn't an option, so flying instead - I just wanted to say thanks so much for your post, I'd have been sorting this even more last minute otherwise!

Why?

If there's a seat on a plane in the future what would cause a delay relating to Monday's cock up?

Any future problem won't be connected to the past issue. Do you expect not to get home every time you fly?

We flew to Milan this morning from Heathrow - no problems whatsoever.

Chatting to the Manager at the hotel desk and she was amazed that our flight went ahead. Said they’d had loads of cancellations and still have people there that should have flown home by now.

I'd risk it, if you have no specifically timed things to be there for, or back for.

From what I've seen most of the issues appear to be fairly sorted - I know people who have flown out of the uk yesterday and today with no issues. And the people I know who couldn't get their Monday flight are either now home or returning today. Those with the longest delays seem to be in Greece but all heading back today it seems.

Just chose somewhere which has regular flights, daily or every other day, rather than where there is normally only weekly flights, if you can.

A friend is stuck in Greece and doesn't know.when she will fly and my dh is a head teacher and has had 3 messages today,(from.staff who should have been back today /tomorrow and are due back to teach on Monday ) who are unsure when they will get back.