London descended into ‘absolute carnage’ over the weekend after its transport was swamped by tourists, protesters, and football fans while shoppers brought packed streets to a ‘total standstill’.
This weekend saw pro-Palestine demonstrations, thousands of people doing Christmas shopping, and hundreds of football fans stranded at stations due to issues on the rails.
And with further travel into the capital for festive tourism and more protests anticipated, the city’s readiness to hold hundreds of thousands of visitors has been called into question in a ‘holiday headache’ for Mayor Sadiq Khan.
On Saturday, the city centre chaos was amplified by the presence of tens of thousands pro-Palestine supporters who marched through the streets of the capital yet again calling on the Government to back an Israel and Hamas ceasefire.
And more tourists are still set to arrive with new passenger numbers at Heathrow just 2 per cent below pre-pandemic levels last month according to figures. Some 6.1million passengers travelled through the terminals in November, the west London airport said. That is compared with 6.2million during the same month in 2019.
Demand for flights to North America peaked before Thanksgiving, with more than 50,000 passengers flying across the Atlantic from Heathrow on November 17, which was the last Friday before the holiday. Diwali celebrations also sparked a surge in travel to India.
