ASLEF, the train drivers’ union, has announced strikes affecting Avanti West Coast on Friday 5 April – part of a range of industrial action at multiple train companies between 4 April and 9 April. Please do not attempt to travel with Avanti West Coast on Friday 5 April as we will not be running any services on our routes.
Avanti West Coast services on the days either side of the strike will also be affected, along with industrial action impacting other train companies throughout the week, so we recommend you check your entire journey before you travel. Where we share routes with other operators, our trains will be busier than usual on the dates other train companies are on strike. More information about which operators are affected each day can be found below.
If you booked tickets to travel on strike days before the industrial action was announced on 20 March, you can claim a full, fee-free refund from your point of purchase. Alternatively, if you have pre-booked tickets for strike days you can use these on alternative travel dates. Find out more below.
To minimise the number of people disrupted, we suspend ticket sales for our services on strike days as soon as they're announced. Online journey planners are now all updated to show no Avanti West Coast trains on Friday 5 April and the resulting amended timetables for 4, 6, 8 and 9 April.
Please continue to check our website and those of other operators for updates.
ASLEF has also announced that their members will withdraw from working any overtime between Thursday 4 to Saturday 6 April and from Monday 8 to Tuesday 9 April, along with the strikes at other train companies on Saturday 6 April and Monday 8 April.
During this period we recommend you check before you travel, as the overtime ban’s impact will vary from route to route, and your entire journey across multiple train operators may be affected - including potentially the first and last trains of the day.
Below are the dates and train companies affected by ASLEF’s current strike action. If you were due to travel with any of these operators, we recommend checking their website using the links below.
Friday 5 April: Avanti West Coast, East Midlands Railway, London Northwestern Railway, West Midlands Railway, and CrossCountry
Saturday 6 April: Chiltern Railways, Great Western Railway, LNER, Northern, TransPennine Express and Heathrow Express
Monday 8 April: c2c, Greater Anglia, Stansted Express, Great Northern, Thameslink, Southeastern, Southern, Gatwick Express, South Western Railway mainline and depot drivers, and Island Line
Your ticket options
Strike day timetables
Please do not attempt to travel on Avanti West Coast on Friday 5 April as we will not be running any services on any of our routes.
To minimise the number of people disrupted, we suspend ticket sales for our services on strike days as soon as they're announced. Online journey planners are now all updated to show no Avanti West Coast trains on Friday 5 April and the resulting amended timetables for 4, 6, 8 and 9 April.
Here’s a summary of our timetable changes as a result of the industrial action, but please use our updated online journey planner to check your entire journey.
- On Thursday 4 April, a number of services have been removed from our timetable due to the following day’s strike action – these are mostly on our Manchester and Birmingham routes, but removals have been spread throughout the day to keep people moving.
- On Friday 5 April, please do not attempt to travel on Avanti West Coast as we will not be running any services on any of our routes.
- On Saturday 6 April, due to the impact of the strike the day before, a higher number of services have had to be removed from the timetable. These changes are throughout the day and across various routes, so please be sure to check before you travel.
- On Sunday 7 April, we’ve not made any changes to our timetable and we expect to run our normal service. If you're travelling to or from Scotland, find out more about the engineering work on that route here.
- On Monday 8 and Tuesday 9 April, due to industrial action in the form of an overtime ban, we have removed a number of trains from the timetable to allow customers to plan ahead, rather than risk on-the-day cancellations. As with Thursday 4 April, these changes are mostly on our Manchester and Birmingham routes, but removals have been spread throughout the day to keep people moving.