Travel column with Katie Butler of Total Travel: When the skies go quiet, everyone notices!
It’s been a while since we’ve had any major travel disruption to deal with, so it came as a bit of a shock this month when we started hearing about problems with NATS, the National Air Traffic Services.
For those who were trying to get away, or more importantly, trying to get home, it was a bit of a nightmare.
A technical problem with the flight processing system caused departures to be paused or restricted at a number of UK airports, including Heathrow and Gatwick, with Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, East Midlands, Stansted, London City, Aberdeen and Edinburgh also affected.
And I’ll be honest, I had my own worries that weekend. I was travelling to Palma from Manchester with 15 of us for my daughter’s hen weekend, so when all the NATS problems started, I was certainly keeping a very close eye on things!
Thankfully, we weren’t impacted, and I can tell you that seeing our flight showing as “ON TIME” on the departure board was a very welcome sight indeed. With 15 of us waiting to get away, I think there would have been a fair bit of panic if that board had said anything different!
It’s estimated that around 1,300 flights were cancelled, affecting at least 75,000 passengers. NATS apologised and said its engineers were working to get things back to normal, but as anyone who has ever sat at an airport watching the departure board change knows, getting everything back on track isn’t quite as simple as flicking a switch.
Hopefully, these sorts of incidents remain few and far between, but they are also a reminder of why, when something does go wrong, having someone to turn to can make a stressful situation a whole lot easier.
And talking of things that could potentially add a few more pounds to the cost of a holiday, there’s been plenty of discussion recently about the government’s plans for a tourist tax in England.
Mayors could be given powers to introduce a levy on overnight stays, potentially from 2028, with the charge based on a percentage of the accommodation cost rather than a flat fee.
Of course, the hospitality industry isn’t exactly jumping up and down with excitement. There are concerns that an uncapped levy could make UK holidays more expensive, particularly for families.
Edinburgh has already introduced a five per cent tourist tax, capped at five nights, so England will be watching closely to see how that works in practice.
Whether you agree with the idea or not, it’s certainly something worth keeping an eye on, particularly if you’re planning a UK break in the next few years. Holidays seem to have a habit of finding new ways to cost us a few extra quid, don’t they?
And finally, what were people actually booking last week? October 2026 was our most popular month, accounting for 15 per cent of bookings, followed by September with ten per cent and December with eight per cent.
Late bookings were extremely strong making up 34 per cent of the total new bookings.
As for destinations, Tenerife came out on top, followed by Majorca and Lanzarote – so it seems plenty of people are still after a bit of sunshine before winter really gets its feet under the table.