Weekly outlook, 16-20 November: will FTSE rally continue? November 15, 2020 After the best week for the FTSE 100 since April, investors will be keen to see if markets can keep the rally going, with a slew of heavyweights set to report. Last Monday Pfizer’s announcement that its vaccine was 90 per cent effective in treating the coronavirus disease sent stocks soaring. Traders cheered the news, [...]
Airline stocks soar on Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine breakthrough November 9, 2020 Airline stocks soared this morning after US pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer reported that early studies suggested its Covid-19 vaccine is 90 per cent effective. Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech are the first firms to show successful data from a large-scale clinical trial of a coronavirus vaccine. The companies said they have so far found no [...]
European lockdowns force EasyJet to scale back capacity even further November 6, 2020 EasyJet said this morning that the new lockdowns in England, Germany and France have forced the British airline to scale back its already reduced flying schedule, and it would now fly no more than 20% of capacity until at least the end of this year. The airline, whose finances are under pressure due to the [...]
Easyjet denies it is in talks with German authorities over state aid November 5, 2020 Easyjet has hit back at reports that it has approached German authorities for emergency funding to help it through the coronavirus pandemic. German business paper Wirtschaftswoche reported that chief exec Johan Lundgren had been involved in talks concerning a sum in the region of hundreds of millions of euros. But representatives for the low-cost carrier [...]
Easyjet boss Stelios loses Telegraph libel case over ‘strawmen’ claim November 2, 2020 Easyjet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou has lost his libel case against the Daily Telegraph over an article that disputed the outspoken founder’s claims about three shareholders. The suit related to an article published in May in which Telegraph journalist Ben Marlow wrote that the budget airline boss was engaging in “increasingly wild conspiracy theories”. The article [...]
What’s in store for the airline industry this winter? October 30, 2020 Although every industry has suffered due to the coronavirus pandemic, few have been as hard hit as the world’s airlines. At the beginning of the year, the idea of a world without global air travel was for most people a relic of a long-forgotten past, but seven months of extreme turbulence have flipped that notion [...]
Easyjet raises £300m from plane sales in bid to boost balance sheet October 27, 2020 Easyjet today agreed to sell nine more planes for £305.7m as the low-cost carrier seeks to relieve pressure on its balance sheet. Wealth management firm Wilmington Trust Services will buy five Airbus 320s, and aircraft leasing firm Sky High 112 will buy the remaining four 320s. Earlier this month Easyjet was reported to have told [...]
Easyjet on track for first ever full year loss October 8, 2020 Easyjet announced this morning it is in line for a pre-tax loss of up to £845m for the full year, the first time the budget carrier will have reported an annual loss. In a trading update, the carrier said passenger numbers for the full year had halved, falling to 48m as a result of the [...]
Easyjet avoids compulsory redundancies as pilots opt for part-time work September 25, 2020 Easyjet has avoided making any compulsory redundancies to its pilots despite plans earlier this summer to cut up to a third of jobs. The airline has been engaged in consultation with the British Airline Pilot Association (Balpa) since the coronavirus pandemic hit the UK in March regarding job cuts. Despite rejecting several proposals, a breakthrough [...]
Easyjet to reduce flying capacity amid quarantine chaos September 8, 2020 Budget carrier Easyjet today said that it would reduce flying capacity for the fourth quarter due to changes to the UK’s quarantine regime. In a statement, the airline said that the “constantly evolving” restrictions, including yesterday’s decision to add seven Greek islands to the “red list”, was “negatively affecting” customer confidence. As a result, Easyjet [...]