A complete travel guide to getting around the UK this Christmas

Amber warnings for traffic gridlock, threatened strikes and the traditional rail engineering work interrupting major train links: it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

The festive season this winter will be busier than ever, with record numbers of travellers predicted at London Heathrow and many other airports, as well as on Britain’s motorways.

These are the key pinch points and potential problems – to help you plan to swerve the disruption, or at least to be prepared for crowds and chaos.

Road

Friday 20 December is set to be the busiest day of the winter on motorways and trunk roads. The AA predicts a record 23.7 million car journeys. The motoring organisation warns Saturday 21 and Monday 23 December will also be extremely busy, with 22.7 million on each day. The AA has issued amber warnings for all three days, “due to the volume of congestion predicted”.

While most of those journeys are expected to be under 50 miles, The Independent has analysed AA figures to calculate that one in seven motorists plans to drive more than 100 miles on “frantic Friday”.

The AA predicts the heaviest traffic on Friday 20 December to be on these roads:

The RAC is calling 21 December “snarl-up Saturday,” and says it will see the highest volume of getaway traffic. On the same day, the AA warns that big shopping venues will be busy, especially the M25 around Bluewater in Kent, the M1 in the vicinity of Meadowhall near Sheffield in South Yorkshire and the M60 around the Trafford Centre west of Manchester.

By “messy Monday,” 23 December, additional congestion is expected on: M1 from Luton to Northampton

From Christmas Eve onwards, multiple closures of rail lines for engineering work will mean more road traffic that there would otherwise be.

Rail

While millions of passengers will travel successfully by train over the festive season, the scale of Network Rail engineering works spells tricky journeys for many. In continental Europe, industrial action is causing problems.

The Independent has created an Advent calendar of rail disruption for the remainder of the year.

Friday 13 December

A national rail strike has begun in France and is affecting mainly trains in the Ile-de-France (Paris and the region around it). The walk-out – involving members of the biggest rail union, the CGT, and the Sud-Rail union – is indefinite.

As a result of the strike, parts of the RER suburban express network in and around Paris are experiencing trafic très fortement perturbé (“very severely disrupted traffic”). Trains that do run on the affected lines are likely to be very crowded.

Eurostar has cancelled several trains between London and Paris on 13 and 14 December, but these are not related to the strike.

Staff working for Trenitalia, the national rail enterprise, are expected to strike until 9pm on Friday 12 December. The train operator says: “On days when strikes are held, Trenitalia guarantees minimum transport services provided as a result of agreements with trade unions.

“For local transport in particular, essential services have been planned for the peak time-bands (from 6am to 9am and from 6pm to 9pm, Monday to Saturday). Some long-distance trains are also guaranteed.”

City transport will also be affected, with Rome’s and Milan’s buses and metro likely to be severely disrupted.

Sunday 15 December

Rail passengers have been urged not to travel on any Great Western Railway (GWR) main lines. The company normally links London Paddington with South Wales and the West of England. But GWR expects “significant disruption to services this Sunday because of crew availability”. Many staff are not contractually obliged to work on Sundays.

A significantly reduced timetable will operate between London Paddington and Bristol Temple Meads, South Wales, Devon and C

London Paddington and South Wales

London Paddington and Devon and Cornwall.”

The firm says: “Fewer trains will run on these routes, and those that do will be extremely busy. Some further services may also be cancelled or delayed at short notice.

“Local services in the Exeter and Bristol areas are also expected to be affected.”

“Customers should change their plans if possible and only travel if absolutely necessary. “

GWR has asked people planning to visit Bath’s Christmas market on Sunday not to take the train. Last weekend the rail company said trains might not be able to call at Bath Spa station because of overcrowding.

Anyone who has a GWR ticket bought for Sunday can use it on Monday 16 December or claim a full refund.

In northwest England, state-run Northern is warning rail passengers of widespread cancellations on Sunday. The train operator, which is the second largest in the UK, says: “We’re expected to see further disruption in the northwest this Sunday, 15 December. With some routes expected to be impacted by train crew being unavailable.

“Recently, we have seen higher levels of cancellations in the northwest and for that we are sorry. The underlying reason is train crew availability, in particular on Sundays which is contractually outside of the working week.”

On past Sundays, links from Manchester Piccadilly to destinations including Chester and Crewe have been affected, as well as the line from Blackpool South to Preston.

Sunday will bring good news to some Northern passengers in northeast England: the first passenger trains in 60 Christmases will run between Newcastle and Ashington on the Northumberland coast.

Trains will run twice-hourly, except in the evenings and on Sundays when they will be hourly. The maximum fare for the 35-minute journey is £3 one way. A new station serving Blyth is being completed on the line and will open during 2025, along with several others.

Friday 20 December

While no disruption is currently expected on the UK rail network, a combination of normal commuting traffic plus the start of the great getaway could make this the busiest day of the winter for train travel.

Saturday 21 December

No trains will run on the Midland Main Line north from London St Pancras International to Luton (including the airport), Leicester, Derby, Nottingham and Sheffield from 21 to 29 December inclusive due to the replacement of the Agar Grove railway bridge in Camden, north London.

St Pancras is the eighth-busiest station in the UK, with over 90,000 passengers a day. Eurostar links to Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels, as well as Southeastern trains to Kent, are unaffected by the closure.

Hourly East Midlands trains will run from Sheffield, Corby and Nottingham as far south as Bedford, for rail-replacement buses to Milton Keynes Central – connecting to the West Coast main line, and therefore London Euston.

Thameslink trains, which normally connect Gatwick and Luton airports via central London, will be severely affected, with shuttles running south and north of London St Pancras.

Sunday 22 December

A threatened strike by train managers working for Avanti West Coast has been called off. Most Avanti trains connecting the capital with Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow should run as normal.

But on train operators including Great Western Railway and Northern, expect significant numbers of cancellations due to staff shortage. Not all train crew working for these firms are required to work on Sundays, and it is likely that many of them will prefer to spend time with their families rather than doing overtime.

Monday 23 December

The single longest Christmas closure of a crucial rail line begins – and continues until the start of services on Monday 6 January.

The South Western Railway main line, linking London Waterloo with Winchester, Southampton and Bournemouth, will be closed between Woking and Basingstoke. The main work-around is to run one train an hour from London to Weymouth via Guildford and Havant, severely reducing capacity and adding 40 minutes to journey times.

Nonstop rail replacement buses will run between Woking and Basingstoke, where passengers can connect with trains to/from Salisbury and Exeter.

Christmas Eve

Trains will start to go home to their depots for Christmas from late afternoon onwards, with services on most routes shutting down early. Last direct trains on key intercity routes on 24 December are as follows:

All Caledonian Sleeper services are cancelled until 27 December.

Christmas Day

No passenger trains will run on any UK rail line.

Boxing Day

Almost all UK routes will have no rail service. Rare exceptions include:

Eurostar will run a full service from London St Pancras International to Paris (15 trains each way) and Brussels (eight trains each way).

Friday 27 December

While most UK rail lines will reopen, there will be key closures of really important routes for Network Rail engineering work.

London Liverpool Street station, the busiest in the UK, will stay closed for the rest of the year, reopening only on Thursday 2 January 2025. Stansted Express trains will start and end at Tottenham Hale.

London Paddington, the hub for South Wales and the West of England, will remain closed until Monday 30 December. Passengers from Cornwall, Devon and Cardiff will have hourly trains to and from London Euston.

Crewe, one of the UK’s most important junctions, will be closed all day. Avanti West Coast trains will be diverted via Stoke and Manchester.

Cambridge is the target for widespread engineering work up to Sunday 5 January 2025.

Sunday 29 December

Cancellations due to staff shortage on Great Western Railway and Northern are likely.

31 December

On London’s Elizabeth Line, RMT members working in the control room will stage a 24-hour strike on the main east-west route through the capital, beginning at 9pm on New Year’s Eve.

The RMT’s general secretary, Mick Lynch, said: “Our members play a vital role in running the Elizabeth Line and their demands for fair treatment on working hours and leave remain unmet.

“The current offer falls short, and our members are determined to secure a fair deal.”

A TfL spokesperson said: “If this action goes ahead we expect the Elizabeth line to operate normally, but would ask customers to check before they travel.”

Bus/Coach

National Express and FlixBus will operate many hundreds of coach journeys between them on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, including to and from airports. But with demand likely to be strong, advance booking is essential.

Some local bus services will run on 25 December. Southern Vectis runs a near-normal schedule on the Isle of Wight on Christmas Day, and some other local operators have a skeleton service, particularly linking hospitals.

open image in gallery

Sea/Shuttle

Thousands of Christmas travellers hoping to cross the Irish Sea by ferry face disruption due to Storm Darragh damage.

The port of Holyhead – which provides the main ferry connection between Great Britain and Ireland – has been closed since last weekend, with no sailings to or from Dublin.

Normally Stena Line and Irish Ferries have four daily ferries each way between the Anglesey and the Irish capital. Hundreds of motorists and foot passengers use the link each day, with “Rail & Sail” fares offered from stations in Wales, England and Scotland to Dublin.

Holyhead-Dublin is also the main freight connection between Great Britain and the Republic.

The port was damaged during the wild weather that swept across Wales on 7 and 8 December. No injuries were reported.

A spokesperson for the port said: “The ferry berths have remained closed to all marine traffic. Safety is of paramount importance to Holyhead Port and a thorough investigation into the extent of the damage and repairs required is ongoing.”

“At this point, it is estimated that the berths will reopen for ferry traffic on Thursday 19 December at the earliest,” the spokesperson said.

Stena Line has cancelled all sailings between Dublin and Holyhead until Friday 20 December.

Sailings from Birkenhead to Dublin continue, as do the southern routes between Pembroke and Fishguard in southwest Wales and the Irish port of Rosslare.

Assuming ferries on the route have resumed before Christmas, they will pause again on 25 December. Stena’s last scheduled departure from Holyhead is 2.45pm on 24 December, resuming at 9am on Boxing Day.

Across on the North Sea, the last sailing from Harwich to Hook of Holland is 11pm on 23 December, with the next at 11pm on Boxing Day. Similar timing apply on P&O Ferries between Hull and Rotterdam.

From Dover on DFDS Ferries to Calais, the final sailing before Christmas Day is at 2.25pm on 24 December; to Dunkirk, it is 2pm. Routes restart at 10am (from Dunkirk) and 11.20am (from Calais) on Boxing Day.

Eurotunnel’s LeShuttle from Folkestone to Calais, however, keeps going 365 days a year.

The UK’s only hovercraft link, from Southsea in Hampshire to Ryde on the Isle of Wight, closes from 6.30pm on Christmas Eve to 6.30am on Friday 27 December.

Air

Of all the flight disruption across Europe in the run up to Christmas, Italy on Sunday 15 December is especially worth avoiding.

A programme of strikes – both day-long and for spells of four hours involving air-traffic controllers and ground handlers will cause delays and cancellations, particularly at the three Milan airports: Malpensa, Linate and Bergamo. Some flights may be preponed or postponed to avoid

The UK’s biggest airports are expecting record-breaking passenger numbers over the festive season 2024-25. The Independent predicts these will be the busiest days:

Christmas Day will be busier than ever at major UK airports. Manchester Airport expects a record number of passengers on 25 December, handling 25,000 passengers. The most popular destinations are:

EasyJet has flights from London Gatwick, Luton, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow on Christmas Day, mainly to sunshine destinations. The airline’s routes from Gatwick to Amsterdam and Paris will each have two flights.

From London Heathrow, British Airways will run a comprehensive long-haul schedule on Christmas Day. Flying on an overnight flight on 24 December (meaning you will be in the air for much of Christmas Day) or departing on 25 December is likely to save a fortune.

On a London-Singapore one-way flight, for example, the lowest BA fare on the evening of Christmas Eve is just £790 for either of the overnight flights – compared with the cheapest ticket on Friday 20 December of £1,837, representing a saving of 57 per cent.

Edinburgh Airport will experience a 19-day strike by fuel tanker drivers working for North Air from 5am on Wednesday 18 December, a week before Christmas. It will end at the same time on Monday 6 January. This period takes in the expected busiest days of the winter at the capital’s airport.

The union says the firm’s “belligerence” could “ground domestic and international flights over the festive season” including United Airlines to New York and Emirates to Dubai along with Loganair’s domestic routes. But airlines say that operations are unlikely to be affected.

Edinburgh Airport’s new BrewDog pub has opened just in time for the festive season.

Wherever you are flying, be aware of airport security rules (the 100ml liquids limit is firmly in place) and go easy on drinks before and during your flight.

In the unlikely event that your flight is cancelled, your rights are clear. The airline must find you a replacement as soon as possible – including on a rival carrier if necessary – and provide meals and, if necessary, accommodation, while you wait. This entitlement does not apply, though, for flights to the UK on a non-UK or European airline.