Brits heading for Easter break urged to leave home early to avoid missing flight

The great British non-getaway ramps up tomorrow as millions heading for an Easter break face days of flight, ferry, road and rail chaos.

Families have been warned to set off early this weekend – one of the busiest of the year for travel.

There is no let-up in sight for ferry passengers heading to Dover, after eight days of road tailbacks caused by P&O axing 800 staff and bad weather.

Motorists and train users also face a headache with 21million car journeys expected and rail track works causing services to be cancelled.

And long lines of travellers were seen snaking around check-ins at Gatwick and Manchester airports from as early as 3am today.

Plane passengers have been urged to go to the airport early to avoid missing their flight (ZENPIX LTD)

One passenger tweeted “chaos already” at Manchester while another at Gatwick said they queued for four hours. Those at Heathrow and Birmingham also had long waits. British Airways and easyJet piled on the pain by axing a total of 110 flights.

Manchester Airport urged passengers to arrive three hours ahead of take-off or risk missing their flights.

Charlie Cornish, boss of Manchester Airports Group, said: “We don’t have the number of staff we need.

“We are advising passengers to arrive three hours before their flight.”

Queues of lorries on the A20 outside Dover (Stephen Lock / i-Images)

Following huge traffic jams last weekend Dover Council leader Trevor Bartlett, said the town could “not tolerate another weekend of gridlock” and was on the brink of declaring “major incident”.

DFDS ferries reported two-hour delays on services from the Kent port to Calais and said it could not accept desperate P&O customers. It expects 40,000 travellers tomorrow and on Sunday.

Chris Parker, from the company, said: “We’ve added extra sailings and increased passenger capacity as well.”

With roads the RAC predicting “two big waves of Easter traffic” this weekend and next, those dodging the roads and hitting railways could be in for a rough ride.

Network Rail is carrying out 530 engineering works, including closing the West Coast Main Line between London and Milton Keynes starting on Good Friday.

There is one ray of sunshine: The Met Office forecasts a “fair spring weekend”.