While thousands of British visitors to Mallorca are having to endure a nightmare experience at airports in the UK and Palma, it appears that many Britons who have not booked their summer holiday yet are not only watching how the airport chaos plays out, they are also watching their pennies.
It appears that the cost of living is going to have a major impact on holiday plans in the UK.
Passengers are facing ongoing disruption ahead of the bank holiday weekend, with holiday giant Tui announcing it will cancel six flights a day until the end of June, affecting around 34,000 travellers in all.
Around 10,000 flights are set to leave the UK between Thursday and Sunday, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.
Other airlines, including EasyJet, have also cancelled flights, with the aviation industry suffering from staff shortages as it struggles to recruit replacements for the thousands of workers it laid off during the coronavirus pandemic when international travel halted.
And new research carried out by Ipsos and published by Travel Weekly has found almost two-thirds of Britons are unlikely to visit a country outside Europe this year.
Of the 1,024 people surveyed by the market research and consulting firm, 63% said they had no plans to travel outside of Europe in 2022, while nearly half (47%) said the same for travelling within the continent.
Almost half (49%) of Britons cited financial concerns as the main reason for not wanting to travel, while around one in seven said airport and port delays were putting them off.
Seven in 10 Brits (71%) said they were likely to stay at home or do various day trips from where they live in the next 12 months, while a similar proportion said they were likely to go somewhere in the UK away from their home (69%).
Airlines and operators have “seriously oversold flights and holidays” relative to their capacity to deliver, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said today.
Shapps said it had been “very distressing” to see people facing more disruption at airports with “holidays cancelled and plans left in disarray”.
Passengers are facing travel problems ahead of the Jubilee weekend, with several airlines cancelling flights.
Up to two million people are preparing to fly over the next few days.
The vast majority of flights will be operating as scheduled, said Airlines UK which represents Tui, EasyJet and British Airways.
Shapps said the government had been clear that it was up to industry leaders to tackle travel disruption, which was also seen at Easter.