The year is beginning with millions of travellers on the move – but with disruption on the railways and roads, and in the skies. These are the key concerns.

Rail

In Scotland, almost no trains are running on 1 January. Passenger numbers elsewhere on the network are relatively low on New Year’s Day,

Crowds will build back on Friday 2 January, with the final weekend of the festive season on Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 January seeing large numbers of travellers – many of them displaced to other lines by Network Rail engineering work.

Eurostar

Thirty trains linking London with Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam were cancelled on Tuesday 30 December, affecting 25,000 passengers.

Passengers who caught the final train of the night from London to Paris at 7.01pm arrived a full 12 hours late in the French capital. Eurostar has not commented on the journey, but Eurotunnel said it was not responsible for what it called an “overnight incident on the British network”.

Eurostar trains ran with delays on New Year’s Eve. Five services connecting the cities are cancelled on 1 January, with one train from Amsterdam starting its journey in Brussels instead.

LeShuttle, the car-carrying operation between Folkestone and Calais, is now running smoothly, with minor delays clearing the French border before departure from the Kent terminal.

Engineering work

Widespread Network Rail engineering work is underway. Some key stations and lines will close, putting pressure on other routes.

No trains will run to or from the main London Liverpool Street station – the busiest in Britain – until 2 January. The exception is the Elizabeth line, which will enable travellers to reach Stratford station – where many links, including the Stansted Express, will start and end.

One of the UK’s other busiest stations, London Waterloo, has reopened with reduced service after four days of engineering work.

The West Coast Main Line, which connects London Euston with the West Midlands, northwest England, north Wales and southern Scotland, will be closed on the key stretch from Milton Keynes and Rugby up to and including 4 January.

A key junction at Hanslope, south of Rugby, is being replaced. Rail replacement bus services will operate. In addition, Chiltern Railway from London Marylebone to Birmingham, the East Coast Main Line north from London King’s Cross and the East Midlands line from London St Pancras will take the strain.

West Coast Main Line

Further north, the West Coast Main Line between Preston and Carlisle will close from New Year’s Eve to 15 January inclusive. A shuttle service will connect the two cities via the scenic Settle-Carlisle Railway.

No trains will run on the main line between Leeds and York until the start of services on 3 January.

Road

The AA predicts that New Year’s Day will be the quietest festive travel day, but traffic will build through the weekend leading to the return to work on Monday. Some prospective key locations for congestion are:

In addition, the M27 in Hampshire is closed between junctions 9 and 11 until 4am on 4 January.

Ferry

Sailings are running normally between the Port of Dover, Calais and Dunkirk. The port is urging drivers not to arrive more than two hours before their scheduled departure.

Unlike aviation, there is no penalty for missing a ferry at Dover due to congestion; you will simply be rebooked free of charge. “If you missed your ferry, please don’t worry,” the port is telling motorists. “You’ll be put on the next available sailing.”

Caledonian MacBrayne ferries in western Scotland are not sailing on New Year’s Day, and some services on 2 January are “request only”. Disruption is expected over the first weekend of 2026 due to severe weather.

Air

Nearly 500 Emirates passengers who took off from London Heathrow for Dubai on Wednesday 31 December got no further than Maidstone in Kent before the pilots decided to turn back because of a landing gear door problem. The Airbus A380 SuperJumbo circled over Orpington for two hours to burn off fuel and landed safely, but it looks as though the passengers may see in the new year in from airport hotels in the Heathrow area.

A spokesperson for the airline said: “Emirates flight EK002 departed London Heathrow (LHR) for Dubai on 31 December 2025 after 13:40 GMT as scheduled, but returned to LHR shortly after take-off due to a technical fault.

“The flight landed back in LHR and passengers and crew were safely disembarked. All passengers will be rebooked to depart on future Emirates flights from LHR. Emirates apologises for any inconvenience caused, but the safety of our passengers and crew is of utmost importance and will not be compromised.”

Many transatlantic flights to the UK have been delayed from the eastern US and Canada, it is believed because of delays with de-icing. Toronto Pearson airport continues to see widespread cancellations due to extreme weather.

During the 17 days of the festive spell from 19 December to 4 January, aviation analysts at Cirium report 42,046 flights are scheduled to depart from UK airports with a total of 7.8 million seats. That is an average of more than 100 takeoffs per hour, with almost 20,000 seats.

Departures are up 2 per cent compared with the festive period in 2024, and available departing seats are up 4 per cent year on year.

London Heathrow has the highest number of flights, with one in five departures being from the UK’s busiest hub. It is expecting its busiest festive spell to date, as are Birmingham and Manchester airports.

The top destinations from many airports are:

This article is kept updated with the latest information.

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