If you’re planning on a Christmas holiday, you might already know about the plans for festive strikes which could put a real dampener on your plans. It’s one of the busiest times of year for traveling and it can be expected to face some delays or disruptions, but the threatened strikes are impending possible chaos.
Thousands of festive holidaymakers are facing having their trip ruined as strikes are planned for Southern Rail, British Airways and UK airport staff – and you’re not alone if you feel a little in the dark about what’s going on.
Here are some useful bits of information that should help:
- Southern Rail is the only rail company affected by planned strike action, on Tuesday 20 December and 31 December until 2 January. Gatwick Express services will also be affected on these dates.
- The Unite union has called a 48-hour strike by 1,500 Swissport ground staff on Friday 23 December and Christmas Eve at a total of 18 airports across the UK. The airports are: Aberdeen, Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Bournemouth, Cardiff, Doncaster, East Midlands, Edinburgh, Gatwick, Glasgow, Heathrow, Leeds/Bradford, Luton, Manchester, Newcastle, Southampton and Stansted.
- There are lots of train lines which will be affected by maintenance work over the festive period: there are no less than 200 engineering projects planned. No train services will run on Christmas Day and few services operate on Boxing Day.
- All lines will be closed between London Paddington and Ealing Broadway between 24 and 29 December. As a result of this, there will be no trains to or from London Paddington, including Heathrow Connect and Heathrow Express services
- Arriva Trains Wales services between Manchester Piccadilly and Warrington Bank Quay will be replaced by buses
- Manchester Oxford Road and Deansgate stations will be closed to trains on 27 December and from 31 December to 2 January
- Northern trains between Manchester Airport, Blackpool North and Barrow-in-Furness are being diverted, running from Manchester Victoria instead
Some good news – British Airways says it plans to run a full schedule on Christmas Day and Boxing Day despite the proposed industrial action by cabin crew belonging to the Unite union. BA says departures from London Heathrow, London Gatwick and London City should not be affected by the dispute.
However, people booked on certain short-haul flights to and from Heathrow on 25 and 26 December can rebook if they would like.
It has been advised to check the BA website for the most up-to-date information.
Rebooking is permitted on flights to and from the following airports:
- Aberdeen
- Basel
- Belfast
- Bergen
- Bilbao
- Bologna
- Budapest
- Dusseldorf
- Gibraltar
- Gothenburg
- Hamburg
- Hanover
- Helsinki
- Kiev
- Krakow
- Lisbon
- Luxembourg
- Manchester
- Marseille
- Oslo
- Paris Orly
- Pisa
- Prague
- Stavanger
- St Petersburg
- Stuttgart
- Vienna
- Venice
- Warsaw
- Zagreb
If you are sick on holiday, or have been sick on holiday in the last two and a half years, write to us for a free consultation – you could be owed thousands and we could help you get your money back.
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