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Travelling at Christmas – With the Christmas period fast approaching and the recent UK government announcement that Covid restrictions will be eased from 23rd to 27th December, travel around the UK is expected to be busier due to this compressed five-day travel window. 

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has announced a series of measures to minimise disruption during the travel window, including clearing roadworks, postponing rail upgrades and cutting some rail ticket charges. Shapps has also encouraged the UK public to “Closely consider your journey, to plan and book ahead” to avoid disruption. 

So, what should you do if you’re going to travel this year to spend Christmas with your family this season, and how might services be affected?  

Trains

As standard there are no train services running on Christmas Day and limited services on routes on Boxing Day. Train companies are advising passenger’s book ahead and avoid busy times due to the combination of reduced capacity and the limited travel window, with many tickets selling out and some fares seeing a significant increase during this period. 

The Rail Delivery Group, which represents operators, advised people to keep checking for tickets and consider signing up for notifications from rail operators, some of whom will confirm when more fares are available. 

Avanti West Coast, which operates trains on the West Coast Main Line, has said it is suspending peak fares between 18 December and the end of the year to help maintain social distancing on its trains.  

This will slash the cost of many journeys on its network – for example, passengers buying a fully flexible fare from Manchester to London during what is usually a peak period will be charged £64.40 instead of £180. 

Meanwhile, under the government’s latest Christmas travel plans, admin fees of up to £10 for changing advance tickets are being waived to encourage people to comply with the new restrictions. This applies to tickets that were bought for specific trains before England’s Covid tiers were announced on 26 November. 

Coaches

With the high demand in trains during the festive period, coach operator National Express has said it will increase its services in the run-up to Christmas, having seen a “significant” increase in traffic to its website since the Christmas Covid rules were announced. With this year’s Christmas Day timetable covering about 55% of the locations compared with 2019. 

The operator said it will focus on major cities, towns and airports and expects demand for services to grow as more guidance about what we can do over Christmas is released by the government.  

Megabus also said it had seen an increase in bookings over the past few days and expected demand to continue to grow. 

Both will have a role in the mass exodus of students from universities between 3 and 9 December, aimed at minimising the risk of them spreading Covid-19 to their home areas.  

Megabus said extra seats will be available from all the largest university campuses, cities and towns for students travelling home for Christmas, including Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham, Oxford, Newcastle, Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Sheffield, Leeds, Norwich, Cardiff and Bristol.  

National Express said it had increased capacity its usual routes that serve university locations Both operators will have services on Christmas Day.

Roads

An advantage of travelling by road over the Christmas period is that there are likely to be fewer roadworks than normal.  The transport secretary said 778 miles of roadworks had been cleared on motorways and A-roads to ease any congestion.  

Meanwhile, the AA has also said it was not “overly concerned” that traffic congestion would occur on roads, with a recent survey they conducted found two-fifths of drivers had already cancelled festive travel plans. 

Flights

EasyJet said it had already taken the decision to increase the number of seats on offer between London and Belfast, and London and Scotland over the Christmas period.  

“We are operating flights in line with demand, which we will be monitoring over the coming days and are able to adjust our flight schedule accordingly,” a spokesman said.  

British Airways said it had seen an uptick in the numbers of people visiting its website looking at flights and holidays.  

A spokesman said it would be putting on larger aircraft if needed, “where possible”.  

But Irish airline Aer Lingus said it would be operating a “much-reduced schedule” due to a “lack of demand” for air travel. 

However, it said additional capacity had been added to key routes including Dublin to London Heathrow over the Christmas period. 

The Horus-I app will provide you with essential, timely information on global COVID-19 updates, crime hotspots, protests, rallies and other major events that are happening in your geographical location. With an easily accessible 24/7 information network of ‘as it happens’ alerts, you can promptly assess the situation and make an informed decision on what your next move should be.    

In situations where you feel unsafe, you can also activate the ‘‘Watch Me Closely‘ feature on your phone which will alert our WatchKeepers to keep a close eye on your location and reach out to you to offer 1-to-1 assistance.   

With the Horus-I app, you can have peace of mind as you go about your daily activities, as well as providing added reassurance. Our app aims to help global universities to resolve the travel challenges surrounding the safety of their students and staff, helping them mitigate risk and assist in an emergency. 

Download the Horus-I app from either the App Store or Android Play Store depending on your device.

Access to the app is granted via the Horus Control Centre or by the reseller who will issue the users login credentials.

Contact the team at info@horus-global.co.uk to discuss how the Horus-I app can improve your travel security.