The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) confirmed a new strike from 6pm on Saturday 24th December until 5:59am on Tuesday 27th December 2022 which is set to cause heavy disruptions to festive trading.

This strike will coincide with a series of 48-hour walk-outs previously arranged over December and January, as well as an over-time ban.

UKHospitality Chief Executive Kate Nicholls commented:

"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 £1.5bn in lost sales and it's incredibly frustrating a solution has yet to be reached to avoid this disruption during the golden month of trade for our sector."

Michael Kill, Night-Time Industries Association (NTIA) CEO, said:

"Further strike action across the Christmas period will be the death knell for many Night Time Economy businesses. These businesses are suffering heavily, with thousands of bookings being cancelled and some attempting to bring bookings forward to avoid strike action, creating further chaos."

"In previous strike action days, we have seen in some cases up to 40% lost in trade, with billions of pounds in revenue in the balance over the holiday period, which they are relying on to survive."

Mick Lynch, general secretary of the RMT, revealed that the union understands the impact caused by rail strikes on the hospitality industry, however, he said that the Government did not prioritise the resolution of the problem.