In the latest Travel Insider newsletter, Simon Calder explains why this summer is shaping up to be a surprisingly good-value time to travel – despite fuel fears, rising costs and mounting uncertainty.
Assessing the Market
Traditionally towards the end of April, I look ahead to the summer. To detect whether it is a buyer’s or seller’s market I use three indices. First, a half-board package holiday in Benidorm for a family of four, flying from Manchester on the final Saturday of July for a week. Above £2,500, the travel firms are doing well; below that, snap up a bargain. Next, a London-Orlando return flight on 1 August for a fortnight: perennially, in my experience, around £1,000. Third, a round trip from Gatwick to Preveza in western Greece for the last full week of August. That might look random, but it’s a smaller airport serving the gorgeous Ionian island of Lefkada, and with no close-by alternatives. Sometimes fares on the route in the final week of August can be unbelievably high due to intense demand. Anything below £500 should be counted a success.
The 2026 Findings
I promise I set those parameters before researching the 2026 figures. On the Manchester-Benidorm trip, Tui came in just below the target at £2,455 to the Costa Blanca. (That includes flights with baggage, and transfers from Alicante airport to the hotel.) Across to the theme park capital of the world in Florida, Virgin Atlantic is clearly doing well: the cheapest deal from Heathrow to Orlando on the first day of August is just a fiver short of £1,000 return. But British Airways evidently has seats to fill from Gatwick: the round trip is £869, including an implausibly generous cabin baggage allowance of two 23kg bags.
The summer stunner, though, is Preveza. For afternoon/evening flights, departing on 22 August for a week, easyJet wants only £221 return. At that price it would be rude not to book. But just before I did, I searched for even more alluring Greek gifts on the same dates. Once again easyJet came in with the best price: Glasgow to the island of Kos and back for an implausibly modest £154. Granted, the Scottish schools will have gone back. Even so a 4,000-mile round trip for just 12 hours’ work at the national living wage is remarkable.
My final throw of the dice was to see how low the airline industry could go on those key end-of-the-summer Saturdays. The answer: £44 return from Birmingham to Beauvais in northern France on Ryanair. The French capital is 75 minutes to the south; the Channel resorts, 90 minutes north. What are you waiting for? Buy now and the airline must get you there, and back.
Reader Concerns
“Are rising flight prices and extra charges putting you off travelling this year?” That is one of the questions we have been polling readers on this week at The Independent. Three out of five respondents said they were intending either to cut back, or were reconsidering trips altogether. That is sad. As I hope I have just demonstrated, summer 2026 is shaping up as an excellent time to travel in terms of broad horizons and good value. Trust me, those bargains are unlikely to repeat next year. Either the supply of holiday pleasure will have been cut, pushing up prices on what remains, or demand will revert to its normal level. Or both: we will be back in the high hundreds of pounds for many summer trips.
Uncertainty and Rights
Uncertainty is understandable. With each day that passes since the start of the war between the US, Israel and Iran, the impact on travellers increases. Many airlines are cutting flights and/or adding fuel surcharges. And look: EU energy commissioner Dan Jorgensen predicts people will be hit by a double whammy of high prices and low availability. “Unfortunately, it’s very likely that many people’s holidays will be affected, either because of flight cancellations or very, very expensive tickets,” he says.
Regrettably for a senior European Union figure, Mr Jorgensen appears not to have consulted his fellow commissioner, Michael McGrath – who is in charge of consumer protection – about the benevolence of Europe’s air passengers’ rights rules. Travellers whose flights are cancelled are entitled to be flown to their destination as close to the original schedule as possible, on any airline with seats available, and to be provided with meals and hotels if there is a significant delay. You might want to join me on a one-way flight from Luton to Mykonos in July – during the peak summer spell – for £83. I fully expect the trip to the Greek island to go ahead, but should Wizz Air cancel I have the right to be rebooked from Gatwick on easyJet or Heathrow on British Airways.
As things stand I expect not to be delayed by biometric examination on arrival or departure. This week Greece made a play to boost summer visitors by promising that British visitors will not have to provide fingerprints or a facial biometric – even though the EU entry-exit system says we should. In our polling, eight out of nine travellers were in favour of Greece going it alone. Since there is no legal basis for Athens’ bold move, I am not sure whether untangling red tape will survive the summer. But those beaches and bars are beckoning.
