Travel with Katie Butler: Expect passport delays due to five week strike

Katie Butler writes: The action without doubt will have a huge impact on the renewal and issuing of passports as the summer approaches and is absolutely going to cause a major back log well past the strike dates.

More than 1000 Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) workers, employed in passport offices in Durham, Glasgow, Liverpool, Newport, Peterborough and Southport are set to walk out from April 3 to May 5.

Last year, staff working from home led to a delay in completing a new digital system for processing applications and so staff had to process them by hand which was of course significantly slower.

This year, with an estimated excess of over one million applications due to be processed over the strike period, we hope that the government can come to an agreement with the PCS as soon as possible to minimize disruption.

Not only does strike action impact the leisure travel industry it will also impact other businesses across the UK resulting in loss of sales and deals, subsequently causing further damage to the economy and industry, which has so far observed a bounce back.

The bounce back! Almost two-thirds (62 per cent) of people have been on an overseas holiday since the lifting of the UK's travel restrictions a year ago, new ABTA research reveals.

The data also shows that demand is now back in line with pre-pandemic levels.

The study shows that 65 per cent of people plan to go on holiday abroad in the next 12 months.

ABTA Chief Executive Mark Tanzer says holidays are a 'spending priority' for Brits, despite the current freeze on finances. He said: "One of the sectors hardest hit by the pandemic is now back, and in a big way, with demand for travel reaching pre-pandemic levels.”

It certainly has been an extraordinary start to the year for Total Travel with record-breaking sales for January, February and March. Whilst we are of course still in recovery from the drawn out pandemic, we are seeing a lot of new faces through the door as more and more people choose to book with a face to face travel agent for extra support and security.

Last week we were delighted to hear that resort flight check-in will start to return to Jet2holidays this summer at more than 50 hotels across Cyprus. Resort flight check-in allows you to check-in your bags at the hotel the morning of your flight, leaving you bag free for the rest of the day and at the airport. The service was originally introduced in 2016 but temporarily stopped during the Covid crisis, we can't wait for further destinations to be added.

A huge 30 per cent of our bookings last week were to travel in the next 12 weeks, with May being by far the most popular month to travel. It was nice to see Greece in the mix last week as one of the top selling destinations and Majorca remaining top spot.