May Bank holiday travellers face disruption on trains, roads and flights
It will be busiest May bank holiday on the roads since 2016
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This May bank holiday weekend is set to be a disruptive one for motorists, rail and air passengers.
The RAC is predicting the busiest May bank holiday on the roads since 2016.
Meanwhile, key London stations are shutting this weekend for engineering work.
There is also an ongoing security staff strike at Luton Airport.
With an increased number of car journeys taking place this weekend for the bank holiday weekend, Green Flag is predicting that there will be 22 breakdowns every minute on British roads.
The breakdown cover provider estimates that there will be 161,445 breakdowns on UK roads between today and Tuesday, a 33 per cent increase in the average number.
To minimise disruption, Green Flag is urging motorists to check their cars before making long journeys.
According to Transport for London, most of the network will be running as normal this May bank holiday.
Here are the key closures you need to know about:
From 01:30 until 04:30 during tonight's Night Tube service, and from 03:50 until 05:50 during Saturday's Night Tube, there will be no service between Waterloo and Wembley Park on the Jubilee Line.
From tomorrow until Monday, there will be no service on the entire Bakerloo Line.
From tomorrow until Monday, there will be no service between Aldgate East and Barking on the District Line.
From tomorrow until Monday, there will no service between Liverpool Street and Barking on the Hammersmith & City Line, due to Crossrail work at Whitechapel.
There are some closures on the London Overground, and in some cases a reduced service.
As well as the closure of Euston station, the UK's fifth-busiest, Fenchurch Street station in London is closed this bank holiday weekend.
Services to and from south Essex diverted to Liverpool Street.
In addition, work to replace track between Farringdon and West Hampstead in London will close the north-south Thameslink line through the capital, though curtailed services will still run to Gatwick and Luton airports.
In Scotland, 4 May marks the start of large-scale work on the line between Aberdeen and Inverness, with disruption continuing until late August.
Meanwhile there is engineering work taking place between Glasgow and Motherwell, which is closing some lines this weekend.
For travellers between London and the West Midlands, the recommended route over the bank holiday is on Chiltern from Marylebone to Birmingham Moor Street, which is a 10-minute walk from the city’s main New Street station.
Travellers to and from Manchester and Liverpool can take this route and transfer to other services from New Street.
Alternatively, passengers for Manchester and Carlisle can travel on LNER from London King’s Cross and change at Leeds.
East Coast main line services operated by LNER are also the best options for Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Over Easter, however, many passengers complained about severe overcrowding on East Coast trains.
The East Midlands line from London St Pancras to Sheffield will be disrupted in the capital and between Derby and Chesterfield.
Network Rail says: “The railway is up to 50 per cent quieter than usual over bank holidays so doing work at this time of year minimises our impact on passengers who, as research shows, understand the need for such activity.”
Virgin Trains warns that "extensive" engineering work is taking place over the bank holiday weekend.
It advises only travelling if absolutely necessary. Check your journey before you travel.
Despite a security staff strike at Luton, the airport insists there is "no impact" from the industrial action and that the average wait time at security is between two and five minutes.
Meanwhile in Italy, some staff working at airports, and for the airlines Alitalia and Air Italy, will be walking out from 12 noon to 4pm local time.
EasyJet, which has dozens of flights scheduled between the UK and Italy, says it “plans to operate its full flying schedule”.
The airline says: “We do recommend that all customers flying to or from Italy on Friday 3 May allow extra time to get to the airport.
“Although this is outside of our control we would like to apologise to customers for any inconvenience and would like to assure them that we are doing all possible to minimise any disruption as a result of the industrial action.”
Looking forward to next week, there is a planned French air-traffic control strike from Wednesday until Friday.
On Thursday 9 May, French air-traffic controllers, alongside millions of other public servants, are planning on walking out in protest at President Macron’s plans to transform public service working conditions.
Air-traffic controllers and engineers will be walking out from 7pm local time on 8 May to 6am on 10 May.
Because so many aircraft usually overfly France, widespread delays and cancellations are likely.
But airlines will not know the likely impact until the coordinating body Eurocontrol conducts a teleconference on Tuesday 7 May.
Therefore passengers booked to fly during the strike may not be able to make alternative plans until very shortly before their intended departure.
If you're travelling on the Eurostar this weekend, services from the UK to Europe will not stop at Ebbsfleet today or tomorrow because French authorities will not be at the station.
Passengers should board at London St Pancras instead.
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