At the end of the week in which many schools in England and Wales break up, more UK holidaymakers will be travelling than ever before.
Friday will be the busiest day of the year so far for flights from UK airports: 3,255 departures are scheduled, carrying 556,000 passengers.
Rail travellers face a range of disruptions, from crowded trains to engineering works.
On the roads, the RAC warns: “The ‘end of summer term’ getaway weekend will be classically busy.”
Motorists heading for France via LeShuttle through the Channel Tunnel to Calais will face the biggest crowds on Friday, while the CEO of the Port of Dover has asked motorists not to arrive more than two hours ahead at the UK’s busiest ferry port.
The Independent has conducted in-depth research to identify the key pressure points for travellers.
Air
Most airports are reporting record figures. Friday 25 July is expected to be busiest day of the year at Birmingham; at Luton, it will be Sunday 27 July.
Fridays in late July and August see the biggest crowds at five top airports. At London Gatwick, landings and take-offs will be just 65 seconds apart on key dates.
A four-day strike by ground handlers at Portuguese airports – including Faro, Madeira, Lisbon and Porto – could cause problems for some holidaymakers between Friday and Monday, with further strikes threatened during weekends in August. But easyJet, Ryanair and Tui say their flights will be unaffected. The Independent has asked British Airways and TAP Portugal if their passengers could be hit by the strike.
Air-traffic control (ATC) delays are impacting thousands of flights across Europe each day – to the extent that Ryanair, Europe’s biggest budget airline, has taken to sending emails to affected passengers headlined “ATC delayed your holiday”.
Eurocontrol, the pan-European coordination body, said that over the past week, “network hotspots saw 31 per cent of network delays generated by France [due to] capacity and staffing issues compounded by adverse weather”.
Operations over Germany and Spain were also affected by “weather and some capacity issues”.
Airspace is constrained across Europe by the closure of Ukrainian skies to all passenger aircraft and Russian skies being off limits to most airlines.
In addition, President Trump’s visit to Scotland from 25 to 29 July is likely…
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