Will UK holidaymakers benefit if overseas trips to Britain drop off?

Q I heard someone on the radio saying that the current flight difficulties would frighten off overseas tourists coming to Britain. Does that mean there will be more room for domestic holidaymakers this summer, then?

Gwen J

A I imagine you were listening to Patricia Yates, chief executive of Visit Britain, talking to Eddie Mair on LBC. She said: “Having pictures of chaos at airports doesn’t do anyone in the travel business any good.” Notwithstanding the short-term impact of aviation disarray, she predicted revenue from inbound tourism, which was £28bn to the UK in 2019, would be around £17bn this year. If she is correct – and I fear that forecast may prove to be unduly optimistic – then that represents a 40 per cent fall in spending.

It is tempting to imagine that means 40 per cent of the supply of tourism in the UK is up for grabs, signifying everything from more space in country cottages and shorter queues at Alton Towers.

Sadly, it doesn’t work like that. The overlap between the activities of foreign visitors and domestic holidaymakers in the UK is relatively small. British tourists tend to head for coast and countryside, with Cornwall and the Lake District respective exemplars. But the proportion of foreigners who take holidays in these locations is relatively small.

They are much more inclined to visit cities – in particular London, but also Bath, Chester, York, Edinburgh and others – which are not generally summer destinations for UK citizens. Tourists attractions, too, are divided; Alton Towers and other theme parks attract an overwhelmingly home-grown audience, while Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s Cathedral and the Tower of London are mostly visited by arrivals from overseas.

So if you are prepared to pivot on your usual plans, to focus on great cities and take up the slack of those missing persons, you could have a surprisingly stress-free and rewarding summer – with the added bonus of excellent value.

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Q I have been following the mounting aviation chaos over the weekend. It looks to me that airlines are taking money for something – an airline seat to a specific destination on a particular day – that they can’t deliver. Is that legal?

Gemma K

A Airlines, so hard hit by the pandemic, are desperate to start making some money and paying down the billions of pounds of debt they have accrued over the past year. They correctly predicted that demand for flights from the UK would soar once our onerous Covid-19 travel restrictions were lifted. Britain’s leading budget airline, easyJet, was especially bold: it unveiled its biggest-ever summer schedule from its largest base, London Gatwick. But as the past few days have shown, easyJet does not appear to have the resources in place to operate all the flights it promised.

The carrier is short of its own staff (particularly cabin crew), while its suppliers, such as ground handling firms, have their own problems. As I mentioned in this space yesterday, after days of widespread late-notice cancellations, the airline has now decided to cull its operation for the next week: 240 easyJet flights to and from Gatwick between now and 6 June have been cancelled, affecting tens of thousands of passengers.

Other carriers are having problems too, with British Airways scaling back its Heathrow short-haul flights and Tui cancelling entire holidays in their thousands over the weekend. In Amsterdam, meanwhile, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines took the unprecedented step of stopping selling tickets from its home, Schiphol airport – because so many passengers are missing flights due to long queues for security.

The shambles is causing immense distress. But I don’t believe there is anything unlawful about the airlines’ behaviour – so long as they comply with their obligations under European air passengers’ rights rules. That means offering an alternative flight as soon as possible, including on rival carriers; providing hotels and meals until the passenger can depart; and paying stipulated cash compensation. And those mounting costs show exactly why the airlines fully intended to fly their programmes: cancelling flights is extremely expensive.

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Q How much notice is easyJet giving with cancellations at Gatwick? We are booked to fly to Cagliari in Sardinia on Friday. Should we book flights elsewhere? We are concerned for our Airbnb and car hire cost – plus our hard-earned holiday!

Caroline

A At the end of a week in which easyJet grounded hundreds of flights, last Friday the airline decided to make a slew of pre-emptive cancellations. Britain’s biggest budget airline has told passengers booked on 240 easyJet flights to and from Gatwick between now and 6 June their flights have been cancelled. The aim is to avoid the many extremely stressful and upsetting late-notice groundings that have characterised recent weeks.

I calculate that at least 36,000 passengers will be affected. But I would be very surprised if you were among them. The key term there is “has told” – I have heard from numerous easyJet passengers who have been informed their flight is off. So if you haven’t heard, you will almost certainly be fine: while there were two last-minute cancellations yesterday, they were to Porto and Milan – both cities with multiple flights.

But if my prediction is wrong, remember that any airline cancelling flights has a strict obligation to passengers under European air rights rules. You are entitled to be flown on the intended day of travel if there is any seat available – even on rival airlines. And though Sardinia is not well served from the UK this summer, a connection via Milan or Rome would be a possibility.

This obligation applies regardless of the cause of the cancellation. But if easyJet is responsible (as it certainly is for the current staff shortage that is causing these mass groundings) then you would also be due compensation of £350 – the distance being just 6km above the 1,500km threshold for a higher cash payout.

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