Growing pains as we make up for lost sunshine

Simon Calder’s Travel Week [View in browser]( [The Independent]( May 13, 2022 [The Independent]( The first sign that summer as we used to know and love it is back? A travel industry leader urging you to book early or risk all Mediterranean holidays selling out. Room at the inn? A doorway in Carrapateira, Portugal Fritz Joussen, chief executive of Europe’s biggest travel firm, Tui, told me on Wednesday that [last-minute trips will be in short supply]( in July and August. He had just revealed the company’s financial results for the first three months of 2022, plus a snapshot of bookings for the summer to gladden the heart of investors. [Average selling prices are one-fifth higher than for the last comparable summer](, 2019. Yet most of that increase is explained by customers booking longer and more upmarket holidays. One figure stands out: the typical Tui traveller trip is a day longer than it was before the coronavirus pandemic. We could all use an extra 24 hours in a beautiful location beside the Med, and the sales evidence shows just that: an increase in average length of stay from 8.5 to 9.5 days. That extension consumes 12 per cent more beds compared with the beforetimes. The short-notice room you have your eye on may be occupied by someone extending their holiday. Meeting all this pent-up demand creates growing pains across the travel spectrum. Earlier this week, Tui passengers on many of it flights were urged to bring their own sandwiches due to staff shortage at its caterer. The firm now tells me: “The food and drinks offering onboard our flights has now resumed as normal”. But the strains continue elsewhere. Our [daily tally of flight cancellations at British Airways]( hits 128 again today – representing at least 20,000 seats that are going nowhere because of resourcing issues at the airline’s main base at London Heathrow. While BA says passengers are usually provided with plenty of warning so they can make alternative plans, anyone given less than 14 days’ notice is entitled to cash compensation. This week I uncovered worrying evidence that [British Airways has been rejecting claims spuriously](: on Monday, after a Heathrow-Dublin flight was cancelled, a passenger was declined as the cause was “restrictions imposed as a result of a global pandemic”. [BA tells me](: “Having looked into this we’ve discovered we made an error in the way we initially categorised a number of our cancelled flights. We’re extremely sorry and we’re contacting customers affected to issue the compensation.” Meanwhile, easyJet is tackling its staff-related cancellations with the novel technique of [removing row 26 from its UK-based Airbus A319 aircraft](. Taking out the final row of six seats reduces the capacity to 150, requiring only three cabin crew, not four, allowing more flights to operate. The pilot count remains at two, however, so there should never be a need for [a passenger to land the plane]( ... Get inspired...   Architectural icons]( Take the ultimate Art Deco tour of northern France [I'm an image]( Dublin's coolest 'hood]( How to spend a day in The Liberties, the Irish capital's rejuvenated distillery district [I'm an image]( [Florence hotels]( The best places to stay for culture and comfort in Italy's Renaissance darling Tip of the week: Air travel peak is 13 weeks away   To side-step crowds at the airport, you might want to avoid flying on Friday 12 August, set to be [the busiest day for the world's airlines since the coronavirus pandemic began](, says OAG. The firm’s chief analyst, John Grant, calculates 16.1 million seats are currently on offer for that date. The actual number of airline travellers on that day, 13 weeks from now, will be around 13 million. In 2021, says Mr Grant, “the busiest day was a very unusual 17 December”. The last-but-one Friday before Christmas had 12.5 million seats on offer, with around nine million passengers. Pick of the week: Norwegian Cruise Line Exceptional value… Get much more for less with NCL. Plus 35% OFF all cruises and fly-cruise packages. [Book now]( Deal of the week: Last call for half-price ScotRail   Off-peak rail tickets in Scotland are half-price until the end of the month – but you must buy by Sunday 15 May. The price of an Edinburgh-Inverness return trip with the discount is £29.30, and Glasgow-Fort William is £27.55. You can travel on any off-peak ScotRail service until Tuesday 31 May. Buy [online via this link]( or use the ScotRail app with the promo code SRSALE. Railcard discounts do not apply. [Train talk: Why rail travel should be all about the journey]( Travel voucher of the week [Save £100 when you spend £750 on May-June 2022 summer holidays]( Question of the week: Fees for flight changes   Q How can Ryanair charge £45 for a flight change you make yourself, online? Understood, there will be a charge for a fare difference, but the fee to amend my ticket to Faro looks to me like a penalty. Is it legal? A Ryanair, in common with every other airline, sets its own tariff for amendments to bookings. The fees do not need to bear any resemblance to the actual costs of the transaction, but instead reflect the carrier's overall fare policy: you get a good deal if you book well in advance, but any changes are expensive. The £45 charge (reduced to €45/£39 if you amend a euro-denominated ticket) is part of the contract you made when you bought the original flight. At the time the airline agreed to fly you on that specific departure. As many of those of us who have tried to change a flight will testify, immediately you seek to vary the original contract the costs mount. Often, if I need to change a Ryanair flight, I simply buy a new ticket, whether on the same airline or a different one. Only if both the original and the replacement flights are particularly expensive is it worth going through the financial pain of changing. In the olden days before the budget airlines, though, amending a cheap flight was effectively impossible. The “legacy” carriers, such as British Airways, Air France and Lufthansa, allowed no amendments on their very cheapest tickets. So things have actually improved. [Read The Independent's city guide to Faro]( Stat of the week 6 The number of months between the Foreign Office being presented with official correspondence from the European Commission about post-Brexit passport arrangements for the EU, and FCDO travel advice being aligned with the rules from Brussels. [Passport validity information was finally updated for European countries yesterday afternoon](. What you might have missed   - Troubled island: [Is it safe for holidaymakers to visit Sri Lanka?]( - Football focus: [Air fares from UK to southern Spain soar ahead of Europa League final]( - Mask mandate: EU to drop face covering requirement on flights from next week]( Simon’s diary   Every day from Monday to Friday I tackle a top travel story, or explore a topic in more detail than usual in ‘Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast’ – available free on [Spotify](, [Apple Podcasts](, [Pocket Casts]( or [Acast](. I find the easiest way to rush out stories is to tweet them. It’s also an easy way to contact me. My DMs are open and I read all direct messages, though regrettably I can’t respond to every one. 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