Travel with Katie Butler:

The view from Leanne's hotel balcony in hot and sunny Turkey.

It is back-to-back holidays for our staff at Total Travel, as last week, we welcomed back our assistant manager Leanne – just as we were saying ‘bon voyage’ to Kath, who is sailing to the Norwegian Fjords on a one week cruise.

Katie Butler, Total Travel, writes: We are almost there, yes – the end of the school holidays are almost upon us, and we are sure that parents and grandparents alike will be ready to take a huge sigh of relief.

We have all shared the holidays at Total Travel but it does mean for the whole of the six/seven weeks we have worked with a staff member down.

Ordinarily, we see the shop quieten down a little bit in this period, and so it counteracts with being short-staffed.

However, as previously mentioned, it once again has been another phenomenal year so far for the industry.

On the back of a year we thought we could not top – it is certainly proving - so far –to be another cracker!

With so many of you travelling overseas over the summer holidays, it is no surprise that our airports have experienced record passenger numbers.

Manchester Airport recorded its busiest July on record with 3.2m passengers, up 6.2 per cent on last July.

A whopping eight million travellers passed through Heathrow Airport in July, securing Heathrow’s position as the busiest airport in Europe, for the first half of the year.

Leanne has just returned from Turkey and has had an amazing time.

Here is what she had to say:

“We flew from Manchester with easyJet, who I have not flown with for many years.

"We were due to fly from Manchester late afternoon but we decided to set off early and grab lunch en route to save on the costs at the airport, and you can never predict the M62.

"We wanted to ensure we got to the airport in good time.

"We found check-in to be extremely busy, but we expected this due to the time of year.

"Security, however, was pretty quick – in fact the fast track queue was longer than the regular one!

"I would say, within 45 minutes of arriving, we were checked-in and strolling around duty free.

"We arrived late in the evening and we were offered a snack, and went back to our room to unpack.

"The one thing I will say, when they say Turkey will be hot in the main summer holidays, take note, as it really was hot and air conditioning is an absolute necessity.

"We found getting sunbeds to be a bit of a struggle, and I had to be up early to ensure we got some, if we wanted a pool day.

"But again it was high season and to be expected.

"Overall, we had a fantastic holiday, and the Turkish people are so friendly.”

Late bookings continue to be the main driver taking 44 per cent share of the total new bookings.

And expectedly, we are starting to see Summer 2025 bookings increase.

Tenerife, Turkey and Majorca once again retained top spots.