Christmas travel: journey times could double warns AA

Thursday and Friday to be busiest days as millions leave work early, although mild weather will help congestionThe great Christmas getaway began in earnest on Thursday, with millions of people expected to take to the roads and rail network for the festive season ? or to escape the UK for warmer climes.With schools finished for the year and many workers taking additional days off to get away early, the AA says it is expecting 18m cars to take to the roads over the holiday period. Journey times on major routes are likely to double on Thursday and Friday, it said.An AA spokesman said on Thursday: "Today and tomorrow will be the two busiest days. However, because it's a normal working day, we are expecting Friday lunchtime and early afternoon to be very busy."Lots of people will take half a day or employers will exercise goodwill so people will leave early. There will be a later rush hour on Friday evening going well past 8pm and there will be an overspill on to Christmas Eve with people leaving early on Saturday morning."Last Christmas, the extremely cold weather changed peoples' travel plans. "Because the weather's milder we are expecting it to be smoother, but there will be more leisure traffic," he added. The AA urged people to be well-prepared before setting off.A total of 4.25 million Britons are due to travel overseas between 16 December and 3 January, compared with just under four million for the festive period in 2010/11.This year, around 1.7 million festive travellers will be leaving from Heathrow airport, 425,000 from Stansted, 750,000 from Gatwick and 210,000 from Luton.A further 340,000 will take off from Manchester airport, 165,000 from Birmingham and 120,000 from Glasgow, while many thousands will be crossing the Channel or travelling through the Channel tunnel.Heathrow's most popular destinations this Christmas are New York, Dubai, Dublin, Amsterdam and Paris. Other hotspots include the Canary Islands, Cuba and Mexico.For those heading to the continent, there was misery on Thursday as a 24-hour strike by Belgian workers meant Eurostar's trains from London to Brussels had to start and terminate in Lille. Services to Paris were operating normally and were not affected by the strike.On the roads, it is anticipated that getaway traffic will be heavy on major routes, including the M1 in Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire, the M4 between London and Newbury in Berkshire, the M25 around London, and the M4 and M5 in the West Country.The Highways Agency, which is responsible for England's motorways and major A-roads, said it planned to complete more than 500 miles of roadworks before Christmas while a further 60 miles will be suspended from Friday until 3 January.In total, 118 sets of roadworks should be finished by Christmas, with works staying in place at 26 locations, including a 32-mile section of the M1 near Luton in Bedfordshire.Other areas where works will still be in place include a 15.5-mile section of the M25 near St Albans in Hertfordshire, a section of the M4 near Wokingham in Berkshire and a 12-mile section of the M62 near Huddersfield in West Yorkshire.At the Trafford Centre in Manchester, the Christmas getaway led to an increase in trade in the last few days before shops shut."The Trafford Centre has been exceptionally busy over the last few days and there are no signs of it letting up as we head into the home straight," said Gordon McKinnon, operations manager."The fact that there's a full week before Christmas this year coupled with people's desire to hold on to their money for as long as possible makes this year's last-minute rush even more intense and we expect this to continue right up until we close at 6pm on Christmas Eve ? getaway or not. Everybody wants a bargain this year and so the post-Christmas sales are going to be huge."The centre has extended its Boxing Day opening hours in anticipation for the demand for a bargain, from 9am to 10pm this year. Some stores will be opening even earlier to get the sales started.The Bluewater shopping centre in Kent was also experiencing an equally big influx of shoppers.On the rail network, buses are replacing trains on many routes over Christmas and new year.However rail officials have said that the number of replacement buses has halved compared with the 2010/11 festive period, and about 54,000 more trains will be running this year compared with last.As much as �109m of work is being done on the network over the holiday period, with projects including work at Birmingham New Street station and Reading station in Berkshire.Travel will be free on tubes and London buses from 11.45pm on New Year's Eve until 4.30am on New Year's Day.Those hoping for a white Christmas are likely to be disappointed, with a wet and mild one predicted instead.Temperatures could reach as high as 14C (57F) on Christmas Day, not far short of the 25 December record of 15.6C set in 1896 at Leith near Edinburgh.There will be similar temperatures on Boxing Day, which will see Scotland and Northern Ireland having more rain while in England and Wales it will be dry, but cloudy.The number of people taking the whole of the Christmas and new year period off work in the UK was expected to be higher than last year's figure of about five million, said the Centre for Economics and Business Research.Christmas and New YearTransportChristmasHelen Carterguardian.co.uk © 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. 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