Travel with Katie Butler: Storms trigger flooding in Greece

Katie Butler writes: Fortunately, most airlines managed to get things almost back to normal by the end of the week and we had very few flight delays to manage.

A review of last month’s costly ‘glitch’ has been promised by the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) as well as an investigation into how it was handled. However, it has been confirmed that it was not a cyber attack.

An initial report by NATS has revealed that a shutdown to both the main ATC computer and its back-up system occurred after a single flight plan presented information it had never seen before, resulting in air traffic controllers having to manually input the data.

This meant that they were only able to process approximately 60 flights per hour in comparison to around 400 flights per hour when the automated system is operating correctly.

The last time there was a major system failure was around ten years ago, so thankfully it is not a regular occurrence.

It wouldn’t be a regular week without some reason for flight cancellations and last week we saw TUI and Jet2 cancel flights to the Greek Island of Skiathos due to severe and widespread flooding, heavy rain and storms.

It has certainly been a freak year for weather around the globe.

We only had the one set of customers in Skiathos at the time, one of which just happened to be the brother of our travel advisor Karen.

Thankfully, he confirmed that he was safe and well, but described the situation as almost like a war zone, with severe thunder and no power for almost 24 hours. We hope his final week brings plenty of sunshine.

Talking of sunshine – what a fantastic week we had last week, typically just as the kids return to school, but isn’t that usually the case?

Weather in the UK can often either help or hinder bookings for a travel agent and last week it certainly got many of you in the mood to get your summer holiday booked.

With kids back to school and the scorching week, we expected a lull in new bookings. It just goes to show there is not always a pattern, as we enjoyed a fantastic week of new bookings, for both next summer and late deals.

To top off a fantastic week we also got the email we were hoping for – Total Travel have once again been invited to the annual Jet2holidays VIP top performing agents conference, which this year will be held in Turkey.

It is an honour to be invited and be placed amongst the top selling agencies in the UK, certainly an achievement for a small independent agency in Heckmondwike. It’s a fabulous feeling to be recognised as a top agent by such a fantastic tour operator.

September remained the top selling month with 14 per cent of bookings. October and May 2024 were equal second with 12 per cent each.

Top selling destinations last week were Turkey and Tenerife with Cyprus coming in a close third.