Exclusive: Parents are paying penalties for holiday absences in record numbers as air fares to the Alps top £1,200 return. As the half-term rush gets under way, last-minute easyJet ski flights to the Alps are selling at up to £1,223 return – without baggage. Demand for escapes to the mountains is so intense that a morning flight from London Gatwick to Geneva on 15 February has only one outbound seat left at £588, while coming back early afternoon a week later there are two inbound spaces at £635.
The identical flights moved seven days later cost a total of £134 – meaning the half-term premium is 1,013 per cent. Winter sun in the Canary Islands is also commanding high prices. Tui has only one seven-night holiday from Manchester for a family of four to the Spanish archipelago on Saturday 15 February: a package to Lanzarote for a total of £8,975. The Department for Education (DfE) says 443,332 penalty notices were issued due to unauthorised family holidays during the 2023-24 academic year, up a quarter on the previous year.
According to the aviation analytics firm Cirium, this February half-term will see more aircraft seats available than ever before. “The number of available seats from UK airports is up 4 per cent on February 2019 as airlines are using larger aircraft on their UK services,” the company said. The most popular destination airports are Amsterdam, Dublin, Geneva, Paris CDG and Tenerife South. But Simon McCulloch, chief growth officer at the travel insurer Staysure, said: “Our latest data reveals some intriguing shifts in travel trends.
“We’re seeing a rise in bookings to less traditional destinations such as the Czech Republic and Poland, suggesting some travellers are looking for alternative options that may offer better value for money. “Spain has seen a noticeable dip in popularity, down just over 30 per cent from last year.”. On the busiest day for departures, Friday 21 February, planes will take off from UK airports at an average rate of almost two per hour, according to Cirium.
Travel within the UK will prove trickier, particularly on the rail network. Although the Avanti West Coast strike has been suspended during and after half-term, planned engineering work on the East Coast main line between York and Newcastle will make journeys longer and could involve rail-replacement buses. Holidaymakers seeking to reach Gatwick and Luton airports on the Thameslink line through central London face cancelled and delayed trains for the rest of Friday, according to National Rail, due to a signalling fault.
