Easter travel: Last-minute breaks unlikely as options for leaving Britain close to selling out

Seats to key cities are few and far between with British Airways early departures to Rome sold out

All BA early BA flights to Rome are sold out (ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/Getty Images)

On the busiest day of the year so far for some airports and ferry operators, with rail travellers facing widespread disruption, options for leaving the country are looking scarce.

Demand for Easter escapes is at its highest-ever, with the UK’s biggest holiday airport experiencing its peak day for departures. More than 65,000 passengers are due to fly from Gatwick, the busiest single-runway airport in the world.

Flights are keeping mostly to schedule. The longest delays, around two hours, are on Virgin Atlantic to Orlando in Florida. Barcelona, Dublin, Malaga and Geneva are the other top destinations.

Stansted is also operating smoothly on its peak day for departures, with 40,500 passengers taking off.

Seats to key cities are few and far between; British Airways early departures to Rome were sold out, with just one seat on the afternoon’s flight from Gatwick - available at £409 one way.

From Manchester to Malaga, the first availability with easyJet is on Monday, while Ryanair has no seats from Edinburgh to Faro this weekend.

At home, the "no vacancies" signs are out at coastal resorts and at Britain’s newest Center Parcs; the holiday park at Woburn Forest is sold out for its first Easter.

In Scotland, the ferry operator Caledonian MacBrayne has added extra sailings to Arran and Skye because of heavy demand.

Long-distance rail passengers are experiencing both planned and unplanned disruption. Two major rail arteries have been severed for engineering work: the West Coast main line from London to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow, and the Great Western line between London, the West Country and South Wales.

Trains on open stretches of the West Coast line between Lancaster and Preston, and around Motherwell, are experiencing delays.

On the roads, Charnock Richard services on the M6 is closed because of flooding. The main artery from Edinburgh to Inverness, the A9, is closed near Stirling.

Returning holidaymakers could get caught in a strike by French air-traffic controllers on Thursday. Eurocontrol has warned that flights from Italy, Spain and Portugal could be affected as well as services from France itself.