British Airways comes to rescue of England fans with more flights and bigger planes for final

British Airways has announced plans to put on additional flights to Berlin after England reached the European Championship final and desperate fans tried to find a way to be there.

The national carrier said it would also try to source larger planes after it emerged there were no more direct return trips to the German capital arriving back in the UK before Tuesday at the earliest.

BA reported a 1,000 per cent increase in searches for flights to Berlin after Gareth Southgate’s side scored a last-gasp goal to beat Netherlands in Wednesday night’s semi-final.

Its chief planning and strategy officer, Neil Chernoff, said: “There’s a real sense of hope across the country on the back of England’s semi-final win and the entire nation is behind Gareth and his squad for Sunday.

“Between 10pm and 11pm on Wednesday we saw a 1,000 per cent increase in searches for flights to Berlin on our website, and we’re currently looking at putting on additional flights and changing the aircraft type to bigger jets to accommodate as many fans as possible over the coming days.

“It’s a huge game and everyone at British Airways hopes England can get over the line and bring it home.”

Fans planning to book flights from Britain to the Three Lions’ first major final on foreign soil were left facing stopovers in other cities in order to make it to Germany for Sunday’s game and back again before Tuesday at the earliest.

According to Skyscanner, there were still flights still available on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday via other destinations the morning after Wednesday night’s semi-final, although none of the trips are straightforward.

Travelling before Saturday would incur extra accommodation costs, while return flights that day were fast approaching £1,000.

There was one for as little as £360 but the outbound plane was due to take off at 6.50am from Heathrow to Brussels, with the connection not arriving in Berlin until 10.15pm.

Similarly-priced flights on Sunday were not due to arrive until almost three hours before kick-off, giving little time to get to the match.

Indirect flights via Hamburg at around the £300 mark were another option the day before the game.

Berlin is approximately two hours away by train, with the cheapest return fare costing in the region of £50.

There was still hotel availability in the German capital at affordable prices, although that was increasingly unlikely to persist.

Alternative forms of travel included a return trip on the Eurostar from St Pancras to Berlin with changeovers in Brussels and Cologne, which would involve all-day travel (approximately 11 hours) on the Saturday and Monday.

But prices for such a round trip were approaching £700.

For those looking to go by road, it was little over half that price to take Le Shuttle from Folkestone to Calais – albeit this did not account for the cost of fuel for what would be an epic 20-hour round trip by car across mainland Europe.

A return trip on the ferry from Dover to Dunkirk was even cheaper at £100 but, again, fuel costs risked making it more expensive than flying.

Mark Knapper, 65, from Hertfordshire, who has attended almost every England game for the last 25 years, said: “Around 50,000 England fans are expected to be in Berlin, with thousands travelling out now. We’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s our first final abroad and fans want to be part of history. Many will fly to Berlin, or to other German cities then catch onward trains to Berlin. Some will drive, and others will travel on coach and bus services.”

Even more problematic than getting there could be obtaining a ticket for a game that had long been officially sold out, with just 10,000 tickets having been allocated to supporters of each team at the 75,000-capacity Olympiastadion.

Face value prices ranged between £80 and almost £850 but, as always, plenty of tickets were being offered on the black market for up to almost £33,000 a pair.

Tournament organisers Uefa said: “We urge fans not to purchase tickets on the secondary market.”

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has all but ruled out making Monday a Bank Holiday if England win Euro 2024 but it could become just that anyway for millions planning to book annual leave or phone in sick.

Hundreds of schools also began telling children yesterday they could stay up late for the 8pm match and come in two hours late on Monday.

Alan Price of BrightHR, which monitors absence among over a million employees at over 50,000 UK companies, said: “With England through to an historic Euros final and a late Sunday night with pubs busy, Monday looks like an unofficial bank holiday for businesses across the country, with hangovers for many staff.

“Annual leave requests for Monday have rocketed, and we expect sickness absence and lateness to more than double on Monday.”