UKHospitality's Chief Executive has reposned to the announcement of additional rail strikes impacting the Christmas weekend.
Rail workers will now also go on strike from 6pm on Christmas Eve until 7am on 27 December. Although most trains don't run on 25 or 26 December, the Christmas Eve strike will curtail some of the last passenger trains before Christmas.
Kate Nicholls (pictured) stated, “These further rail strikes will be hugely damaging for hospitality businesses, their workers and their customers as it seems almost guaranteed that we will be facing a heavily disrupted Christmas for the third year in a row.
“Our estimate of the cost of these strikes already stood at £1.5 billion in lost sales and it’s incredibly frustrating that a solution has yet to be reached to avoid this disruption during the golden month of trade for our sector.'
Kate concluded, “We’re continuing to urge all parties involved in the negotiations to reach a solution imminently to avoid these harmful strikes.”
Timetables will be reduced by 80% from Tuesday next week, during the first 48-hour wave of the series of strikes.
