Over the last couple of weeks there has been both good and bad news for families planning a break during the October half term. On the one hand, Heathrow Airport extended its cap on numbers until October 29, which takes it to the end of the holiday week. This is likely to restrict availability and also put upward pressure on airfares, especially on BA flights and for long-haul destinations generally.
Then, hours after the announcement, in typically provocative and opportunistic fashion, Ryanair responded by adding over 500 flights to and from its main base at London Stansted Airport, specifically for that week. This will provide an additional 100,000 seats to popular family destinations in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece, and France.
This looks like a canny move by Ryanair, which is benefitting from Stansted’s impressive bounce-back from the pandemic. And it is more bad news for BA, which even had to suspend bookings for two weeks this month because of the staff shortages which continue to hamper Heathrow.
But what does it mean for travellers? Should it make us more wary of booking for half term, or should we act quickly to make sure we get the flights we want at a reasonable price?
The answer is straightforward. Book now. The October half term is an incredibly busy time and demand this year will be focused almost entirely on flights departing on the weekend of October 22-23 and returning on 29-30. Unlike the Whitsun week, when most of the Med is enjoying warm sunshine, the number of destinations offering reliable weather in late autumn is also quite restricted. Much of the demand is traditionally focused on flights to the Canary Islands, southern Spain and southern Italy. Of course, plenty of people will be booking to Majorca and France, but they will be taking more of a risk with the weather.
But brace yourself. Fares to popular destinations are already looking very high. The cheapest BA return from Heathrow to Dubai for those weekends is currently £962. For some key destinations – Tenerife, for example, BA offers a choice of either Gatwick or Heathrow departures. But even so, fares are still extraordinarily high for those weekends. The cheapest returns currently are £832 from Gatwick and an eye-watering £1,255 from Heathrow. The good news about the continuing numbers cap at the airport is it means that the airport is much less likely to face the sort of disruption and delay which bedevilled it earlier in the summer.
As for Ryanair, its press release announcing the additional flights cites one-way fares from €29.99 – and I’m sure there are some available at that rate. But looking at fares for those same two weekends I found the cheapest Ryanair returns to Malaga were £218 and to Tenerife, £457, both from Stansted.
You can find much cheaper fares on all these routes by being more flexible about departure dates (travelling midweek for example), but in essence, the message is clear. October half term is already looking expensive, so much so that it may restrict you from booking a break abroad with the family in tow. It’s possible of course that, if demand slips, fares might drop in the next few weeks. But the balance of probability is that they will either sell out or get even more expensive.