All the signs are that the festive getaway in, around and away from the UK will be the busiest of the decade, setting new records across transport pressure points.

What will it mean for your journey? The Independent has consulted dozens of organisations to curate this Christmas travel special.

Road

Assessing figures from both the AA and the RAC, the worst delays in coming days are likely to be on Monday 22 December – with commuter, business and getaway traffic combining.

Key locations for congestion are:

The RAC says: “The single busiest day for getaways over the period is Christmas Eve, when volumes of traffic could be at their highest since Covid.” Around 4.2 million getaway journeys are expected, but regular travel will be much lighter.

In addition, the M27 in Hampshire will close between junctions 9 and 11 from 8pm on 24 December until 4am on 4 January.

Christmas Day will be the optimum driving day across the UK.

Air

On Sunday 21 December, most flights are running smoothly. The most significant delay is for easyJet passengers from Hurghada in Egypt to Luton; their inbound flight on Saturday night diverted to Athens “due to a passenger welfare issue”. With the crew unable to complete the journey within their permitted hours, the flight could not continue. The aircraft is now due to leave Athens at 4pm on Sunday.

Norse Atlantic from New York JFK to London Gatwick is running six hours late, and the return outbound trip to Manhattan will also be delayed.

London Heathrow, Birmingham and Manchester airports are among those expecting their busiest Christmas to date. The Independent approached all the major airports for their busiest days.

Some specific peaks are:

The top destinations from many airports will be:

Passengers are warned about inadvertently breaching aviation security rules with items such as Christmas crackers and snow globes.

UK passport holders have been reporting long waits at Schengen area frontiers across Europe. On Sunday morning, Michel Roux posted on X (formerly Twitter): “Current queue at Lyon passport control 120 mins, kids crying, tempers boiling over, bloody Brex****.”

Rail

On Midwinter’s Day, the worst disruption is on CrossCountry Trains, which serves England, Wales and Scotland through its hub at Birmingham New Street. Many trains have been cancelled or curtailed “due to constraints on train crew availability”. For example, the 9am from Leeds to Plymouth went no further than Derby, and the Bristol to Edinburgh is starting at Derby with no catering available between Newcastle and the Scottish capital.

With other operators’ trains full, the general advice for travellers is to catch CrossCountry Trains services before or after the cancelled departure. Some limited rail replacement buses have been put in place.

Monday 22 December will be the busiest day on the railways before Christmas. While individual lines are likely to vary – especially after Christmas when widespread Network Rail engineering work kicks in – passengers are more or less guaranteed an uncrowded trip on 24 and 31 December as well as New Year’s Day.

Trainline data indicates the three busiest routes are all to and from London Euston, serving Birmingham New Street, Manchester Piccadilly and Milton Keynes Central.

The optimum day to travel before Christmas in order to avoid crowding is Wednesday 24 December. Be warned, though, that services wind down early: the last London-Edinburgh train leaves at 4.30pm on Christmas Eve, while the final Newcastle–Birmingham departure is at 5.40pm.

No trains run in the UK on Christmas Day, and very few on Boxing Day.

After Christmas, there will be a surge on Saturday 27 December when intercity services are restored. Some key lines will close, putting pressure on other routes.

New Year’s Eve will be quiet, with New Year’s Day hosting fewer travellers still – though in Scotland almost no trains will run on 1 January.

Crowds will build back on Friday 2 January, with the final weekend of the festive season on Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 January involving large numbers of travellers, many of them displaced to other lines by Network Rail 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 to Rugby and will remain closed up to and including 5 January for the replacement of a junction at Hanslope in Buckinghamshire.

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

One of the UK’s busiest stations, London Waterloo, will be closed from the end of services on Christmas Eve to Sunday 28 December inclusive.

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

Bus and coach

Both Flixbus and National Express are laying on extra trips on key dates and routes, aiming especially to help passengers affected by rail engineering closures. The coach firms will be running hundreds of services on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, when few trains run.

As normal, almost all local bus services will close across the country on 25 December, apart from a few hospital services and the Isle of Wight, where the local company Southern Vectis says: “We are running a special Christmas Timetable on routes 1, 3, 5, 7 & 9”

Ferry

At the Port of Dover, queues built on Saturday 20 December due to ”IT issues at the French Border Control”. In the Buffer Zone before the French checkpoint, many motorists waited for more than an hour. By Sunday the queues had largely cleared. “Processing time is currently around 30 minutes in the Buffer Zone,” drivers are told.

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 on the next available sailing free of charge.

On the Caledonian MacBrayne network in western Scotland, travellers between Oban, Coll and Tiree are warned: “Due to stronger than forecast winds, service is liable to disruption or cancellation at short notice.”

This article is kept updated with the latest information

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