More than two million holidaymakers are set to travel this Easter weekend, April 1-6.
Spain is the favourite country for people looking to escape the UK, with the Canary Islands – and Tenerife in particular – the most popular, according to ABTA.
Egypt has continued the strong growth seen in 2009 with Sharm El Sheik leading the way. Tunisia and Turkey have also sold well.
Families are flying to Florida to sample theme parks and the Dominican Republic for Caribbean sun.
Snow sports enthusiasts make Geneva the number one choice to access the Alpine resorts of Switzerland, France and Italy.
Paris, Amsterdam, Dublin, Milan and New York are the top five city break destinations.
London, Edinburgh and Manchester leading the way for UK city breaks. People are also travelling to the Channel Islands and cottages in Cornwall, East Anglia and the North of England.
ATA estimates 575,000 will leave from Heathrow, 250,000 from Gatwick, 175,000 from Stansted and 60,000 from Luton. A further 15,000 will depart from Southampton.
More than 155,000 will be leaving via Scottish airports with 58,000 from Glasgow, 75,000 from Edinburgh and 23,000 from Aberdeen.
From the north and the Midlands, 141,000 will leave from Manchester and 60,000 from Birmingham.
Other regional airports and ferry terminals will also be “extremely busy” over the weekend and Eurostar is reporting 85,000 leaving though the channel tunnel.
ABTA chairman John McEwan said: “Easter is the traditional curtain raiser to the summer and I am delighted to see that hundreds of thousands of our customers are taking the opportunity to take a well earned break both here in the UK and overseas.”
by Phil Davies
