Cirium reveals scale of Easter travel as UK school holidays begin

Cirium Data

Easter school holidays:

  • During the Easter school holidays (31 March – 16 April), 44,074 flights are scheduled to depart UK airports – equating to nearly 7.8 million seats
  • 14 April is scheduled to be the busiest day across the holiday period, with 2,776 flights departing UK airports
  • The most popular international destinations for UK departures will be Dublin, followed by Amsterdam, Malaga, Palma and Alicante
  • easyJet is projected to be the busiest airline during the holidays, with over 9,000 departures from the UK, followed by British Airways, Ryanair Loganair, and Jet2
  • Heathrow Airport will see the largest number of departures, 10,696, followed by Gatwick, Stansted, Manchester and Edinburgh.

Easter weekend:

  • During the Easter weekend 2023 (7 – 10 April), 10,286 flights are scheduled to depart UK airports – equating to over 1.8 million seats
  • Easter departures from UK airports remain 12% down compared to the Easter weekend in 2019 when there were 11,743 departing flights
  • Departures are up 12% compared to Easter 2022, and 655% up compared to 2021, showing the continued recovery of the industry
  • The most popular international destinations for UK departures will be Dublin, followed by Amsterdam, Palma, Malaga and Alicante
  • easyJet is projected to be the busiest airline throughout the weekend, with 2,151 departures from the UK, followed by British Airways, Ryanair and Jet2
  • Heathrow Airport will see the largest number of departures, 2,493, followed by Gatwick, Stansted, Manchester and Edinburgh.

*Easter weekend dates: 

  • 19-22 April 2019 / 2-5 April 2021 / 15-18 April 2022 / 7-10 April 2023

Heathrow Terminal 5 security strike:

  • During the strike period (31 March – 9 April inclusive), Heathrow is scheduled to see 6,253 departures – equating to over 1.3 million seats
  • British Airways had been scheduled to operate 3,185 departures from Heathrow Airport* during the strike period (51% of LHR services) – equating to nearly 650,00 seats
  • However, in the last week, this figure has dropped to 3,106 departures (excluding last minute cancellations) – equating to a loss of over 12,700 seats
  • Edinburgh is projected to see the highest number of BA flights during the strike period (103 departures), followed by Glasgow (78), Barcelona (75), Amsterdam (72), and New York JFK (70).

*Including Terminal 3 and Terminal 5