UK traffic news live: Easter travellers warned of train chaos and airport strikes with 19 million to hit UK roads – UK Times

The Government has lifted over a thousand miles of road works this Easter in a bid to make “journey’s smoother”.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer wrote on X: “No one wants to spend their Easter weekend stuck in traffic.

“So we’re lifting more than a thousand miles of roadworks over Easter.

“And to save you money, we’ve frozen fuel duty and delivered record funding to fix potholes.

“Drivers — I’m on your side.”

Lines are blocked between Wolverhampton and Birmingham New Street, due to a trespass incident.

Trains running between these stations may be delayed by up to 20 minutes or revised, National Rail said.

Disruption is expected until 08:15 am.

The Met Office has issued a yellow weather warning for the southwest of England on Friday, covering tourist hotspots including Cornwall, Devon, Plymouth and Torbay.

The forecasters warned that a prolonged spell of rain, some of it heavy, will likely cause difficult driving conditions and some disruption to travel as millions hit the road over the Bank Holiday weekend.

Lunchtime on Good Friday is expected to have the worst traffic of the Easter weekend.

The A303 westbound to Stonehenge and the M5 southbound J15 at the RAC tower north of Bristol are expected to be the worst affected.

Journey times are likely to be nearly an hour longer for both meaning drivers could be stuck in their vehicles for more than half as long as usual.

RAC breakdown spokesperson Alice Simpson said: “We’re still expecting to see extremely high levels of traffic from Thursday onwards, with the greatest number of Easter getaway trips planned for three years.”

Aviation analytics firm Cirium says Good Friday, 18 April, will be the busiest day overall, with 2,949 flights taking off from UK airports – a departure every 30 seconds on average.

Britain’s biggest budget airline, easyJet, confirms its busiest day will be Good Friday.

The carrier plans more than 1,100 flights to or from UK airports carrying up to 145,000 passengers.

The top sunshine destinations are Dalaman in Turkey and the Spanish islands of Mallorca and Tenerife.

But with air traffic control centres across Europe still chronically short of staff, holidaymakers face the worst disruption caused by congestion in the skies in a quarter-century.

Ryanair says 36.2 million of its passengers have been impacted by air traffic control restrictions in the last year, with more than 200,000 flights delayed.

Travellers to and from France and Spain are worst affected.

The AA and RAC agree the busiest day over the Easter spell will be Thursday, with 19.8 million motorists in their vehicles at some stage of the day.

Good Friday looks almost as busy. Easter Sunday will see the lightest traffic.

For holiday journeys within the UK, The Independent has used data from previous years to predict the heaviest traffic on four key arteries:

• M6 north of Birmingham, especially Preston and beyond as holidaymakers head for Blackpool and the Lake District.
• M5 southwest from Birmingham to Bristol and Exeter
• A303 southwest through Wiltshire
• M25 particularly between the M23 and M40 junctions to the southwest, and the Dartford Crossing to the east.

Trains running between Stevenage and London Kings Cross may be cancelled, delayed by up to 90 minutes, revised or diverted via Hertford North, National Rail said.

Major disruption is expected until the end of the day.

National Highways director of operational services, Andrew Butterfield, said: “We expect the roads to be busy with people looking to make the most of a long Easter weekend.

“That’s why we are making journeys easier by removing a huge number of roadworks.”