Monday the 25th of August is a Bank Holiday in the UK. This means that there is no postal collection or deliveries on this day. Any mail sent after 5pm (UK time) close of business on Friday 22nd of August will be processed on the next available working day, Tuesday the 26th of August. Any Special Delivery or Recorded Delivery items sent after 1pm (UK time) on Friday the 22nd of August will be processed on Tuesday the 26th of August. Customers should also be aware that delivery of mail during this time may take up to 2 days longer than normal.

Strikes by airport staff that were planned for this weekend have been called off after talks. The strikes were expected to caused widespread disruption over the bank holiday weekend as cabin staff and baggage handlers were due to walk out. Although the strikes have been called off at Gatwick and Manchester, flights at Stanstead could still be affected by a separate dispute involving security staff.

Passengers on a flight from Newcastle Airport had to leave their luggage behind at the last minute because the plane was too heavy. The 151 passengers were informed that the aircraft needed to lose weight and were given the choice of half the passengers getting off or all the passengers flying but without their luggage. At first volunteers were sought to get off but as few people were willing to leave the flight eventually left four hours later with the passengers minus their luggage. Passengers were assured their luggage would follow them but some people claim they were had to wait three days before it arrived.

This weeks Travel Blog of the Week is Backpacking Travel Blog. The blog concentrates on travel around Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia and South America and is predominately a photo travel blog peppered with comments. Whilst it is unusual to choose a photo blog as the PC2Paper Travel Blog of the week, this blog is full of great pictures and is well worth a further look. Here are just a few of the photos.

Above the amazing temple Ta Prohm in Cambodia and the local snack of fried crickets.

Below a tree frog in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest and a waterfall in the Canaima National Park

Travellers could face chaos on the Bank Holiday weekend as staff at Gatwick and Stansted airport have voted to go on strike. Workers are set to stage a strike on Monday 25th of August and 29th of August after rejecting an offer in a pay dispute. The unite union has said that all baggage handling and check in operations will be halted at a number of airlines with the dispute likely to spread to other airports over the next few weeks because of similar disputes over pay.

You would expect train travel to be getting better rather than worse but this article suggests otherwise. The article makes the claim that train journeys actually take longer today than they did 20 years ago. This is despite improvements with faster trains and track improvements. The worst area appears to be London and the South East where passengers have to allow an extra five minutes for their journey compared with 20 years ago. A spokesman for London TravelWatch said “Some increase in journey times may be justified by more passengers, thus longer stopping at stations. However, modern trains serving most London routes have better acceleration, which should offset this to some degree.” Does your journey take you longer?

The village of Booze in the Yorkshire Dales could soon have its postal service restored after the council have agreed to pay for road improvements in the area. The service was suspended by Royal Mail because it said the narrow track leading to the village was too hazardous for its workers. This has meant that 11 households have had to travel 30 miles to collect their mail. The council will make improvements to passing places on the route and Royal Mail have said that deliveries will resume on the 1st of September once the improvements have been made.

Ryanair will cancel thousands of bookings that are made on third party websites. The airline's boss is taking the hard line stance against websites that compare prices between different airlines but which he says charge more for flights than if they were purchased directly from Ryanair. Any passengers that book through these websites will now see their bookings cancelled. The company also believes that the so called screen scraper website are illegal and that causing disruption by cancelling booking made through them will be easier than taking them to court. Screen scraping sites currently account for 0.5% of Ryanair's bookings but this amounts to 1,000 flights a day. Ryanair has no means of contacting affected customers, this is down to the website that has taken the booking. So if you have made a booking through an external website you might want to check it is still valid before flying.

South West Trains have converted one of its diesel trains to use bio-fuel in order to test an alternative power source. The train will run on a mixture of soya, rape seed and diesel. The experiment will run until the end of the year with the train operating between Exeter and Waterloo. Other rail operators are waiting to see the results with a view to implementing similar schemes if this is successful.

At PC2Paper we usually experience a very good service from Royal Mail with only a few letters lost in the post. It does appear, however, that some mail can take a very long time to arrive. This article highlights the case of a postcard that was delivered after 79 years. The post card was posted in 1929 in Essex and arrived at its destination last Thursday. Royal Mail have said it is difficult to determine where it has been for the last 79 years.