ABTA: Over 4.7 million head for Christmas and New Year travel in UK

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

As per travel trade association ABTA more than 4.7 million UK passengers  will travel abroad over the Christmas and New Year period, 21 December will be the busiest day of travel and the quietest will be Christmas.

Major airports are reporting high numbers, 560,000 are departing from Stansted, 377,500 from Luton and around 235,000 leaving from Bristol.

Major airports will see millions leaving the country, on 23 December Gatwick Airport will see 73,000 passengers flying out  while Heathrow will be busy and will have  over a million departing during the festive period.

Mark Tanzer, ABTA’s chief executive said that Christmas and New Year are always very busy times for the travel industry as people head off to spend their well-earned holidays with family and friends.  The festive break appears to be a busy one and people were asked to keep extra time for their journeys and check for disruption if travelling by public transport.

The Scottish airports will have 262,184 travelling through Edinburgh alone and 33,615 from London Southend while large numbers will leave from other regional airports.

Across the English Channel a major number of people are travelling via ferry or through the Channel Tunner, while hundreds of thousands heading off on the Euroostar. However, the planes will still fly between the UK and EU.

Tanzer  said that over the Christmas period many people will be planning to book their summer holidays and they will be keen to know about the implications of Brexit on travel.

Regardless of the Brexit outcome  the EU and UK Government said that planes will still fly and travellers will not require a visa.

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